I love Christmas Day. One of my favourite things of the whole year is to be outside in the quiet on Christmas Day. In the middle of a large city like Winnipeg, on Christmas Day there is a quiet hush. The stores are closed. No one is bustling to get anywhere…there may be some cars …
A small light in a big darkness
Today is my annual so-low-that-down-is-up day–I blog about it every year (here in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). The day when we have the least amount of light, and the most amount of darkness. The day that launches a time when the days will only have more light than the day before. More light is coming…just …
Tis the Season for Shopping
I took two afternoons off from work last week, playing hooky to go the malls to shop for Christmas presents. I thought I’d do it during the day when malls were a little emptier, and I’d dedicate the time to wandering around, being open to ideas I hadn’t thought of, and making purchases to check …
Prioritizing the Important over the Urgent
Boiling water for tea is a good thing, except when it’s too much. And when it’s too much, it’s not a good thing, because it’s too much. Let me explain. At our office, we don’t use the harsh overhead flourescent lights in the counselling rooms. My thinking is that uncovering and exposing parts of oneself …
Benefits of being meaningfully loved
“We all long for loving connections. A hand to hold that changes our world.” Dr. Susan Johnson EFT guru I’m a science geek…I love to learn things. To know what works, and how it works, and what we can learn from understanding our world better using scientific research. We were created for relationships…we need relationships …
Self-compassion–A lived experience
I’m still chuckling at myself for what happened before I learned self compassion. Sometimes, the most powerful lessons aren’t learned at the course, but in the course of life. I registered for the workshop hosted by the Compassion Project, Klinik, and the Manitoba Trauma Information and Education Resource Center that featured Dr. Kristin Neff that …
The Power of Emotional Intelligence
For many years, I taught students at the School of Occupational Therapy at the University of Manitoba. I loved the teaching and discussions…the marking and administration–not so much! 🙂 One of my favourite courses to teach was “Advanced Communication Skills”…given the finite amount of hours I had to teach content, we decided I would focus …
When Helping Doesn’t Help
I remember at a baby shower a while back, there was a game that was essentially the “maternity olympics”…there were prizes for the biggest baby, the most over due, and so on. When the “longest labor” event arose, I won. Hands down. When I was six and a half months pregnant with my youngest Junior …
Letting our kids fall, fail and fear out of love
I wrote recently about the disintegration of my marriage 10 years ago…watching the one I love become increasingly distant as he disappeared into a new life away from me. One of the things I dreaded about his departure was the effect of this on my Junior Tribe Members. Y’see, I’ve worked with people for years, …
The Difficult Route to Powerful Children
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