Adversity brings out the best in many. One of the privileges of counselling clients is that I regularly have the honor of watching men and women triumph over challenges: refusing to let a marriage that is on life support die. A spouse digs deep and breathes deep and with hesitation and even a healthy dose …
Turning Cynicism into Wisdom
I’ve been reading The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs for a book club that I will be attending. Though I’m not yet finished the book (and I’ve only got until Wednesday, so I’d better get reading), I’ve been struck by the sorts of ways A.J. has found the experience enriching. Some of …
Celebrating 10 years!
Bergen & Associates Counselling is 10 years old today! Brian, Lynn and Gary surprised us with cake to celebrate. A day with a Jeanne’s cake is a good day! What a fun way to acknowledge the day! Of course, it looked a lot different 10 years ago than it does today. September 29, 1999, …
A Painful Permission
Mackenzie Phillips dropped a bombshell that has horrified her family, shocked a lot of people, and given childhood incest survivors an ability to hear their own experience and story through the story of another. On the ‘Early Show’, she said: “I was hoping to help incest survivors and find some redemption and freedom,” she …
Embrace your Wabi-Sabi-ness!
“Wabi-sabi”–I happened to come upon the term today, which a totally cool concept I stumbled across. Of the Japanese term, Wikipedia says this: Richard R. Powell summarizes by saying “It (wabi-sabi) nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”….. Fading autumn leaves would be …
Losing the Life One Wants to Live
When the urgent takes precedence over the important in our lives, we lose ourselves in the process. The pace of our lives can stop us from being who we know we are, who we really want to be. I was listening to a discussion the other day regarding a study outlined by Malcolm Gladwell in …
Da Nile Ain’t Just a River In Egypt
My brain was successfully escaping the fact that it is mid-fall. I’ve been in denial, pleasantly so. That hasn’t been hard to pull off, actually. The beautiful weather would have us all believe it is still summer. I see the warm sun streaming down the window, see clients come in to session with tank tops …
A Thought
Run your fingers through my soul. For once, just once, feel exactly what I feel, believe what I believe, perceive as I perceive, look, experience, examine, and for once; just once, understand
A Tribute–To Those Who Raise Us Up
sitellite/util/snippets (code=fae023ace7d9033f688a99ee4c38f0c5) To those who raise us up so we can stand on mountains: The mom who wears the handmade beaded jewelry from Mother’s Day all year long The teacher who tells the kid in the back of the room who has long ago learned that she “doesn’t have the stuff” that he thinks the …
Beginnings and Boundaries
I can almost smell the fresh wood shavings (off of newly sharpened Laurentian pencial crayons) this time of year as school starts as I remember the years of loving those brand new tall pencil crayons waiting for projects to color. The smell of fresh plastic with the carboflourocarbons (or whatever they are called) wafting …