Does Social Media comfort or numb grief?

I spent some time on Laurie Kilmartin’s twitter account today (twitter handle: anylaurie16), which became very popular as she live tweeted her experience of her father’s last days in early March this year.  Now…to be clear, she’s a professional joke writer (for Conan) and a comedienne in her own right, and so her tweets about …

Wholehearted Living

Yesterday was one of those days…chaotically full. It was the last “Advanced Communication Skills” class with my class of Occupational Therapy students and I figger they don’t get much fun in their lives…actually, they really don’t get any time at all to have fun…so as a closing activity we played this game called “Bite the …

100 days of no dessert Part 2

In Part 1, I explained why I started this crazy adventure of no desserts, sweets, or chocolate…a matter of integrity…if I’m gonna work with clients as they bravely confront their numbing behaviours, I better step up and enter the same arena myself! I was going to treat this sugar-comfort-numbing thing like an addiction.  Because I needed wanted …

Attunement vs tuned out

In this age of instant and available communication with most anybody we know available with a few taps, the world isn’t an oyster, it’s a cell phone. Think for a moment.  What do you do when:   you are caught behind someone in a grocery line who needs a price check that is taking, like, …

Hump Day Nudge: Tears for Beauty

I remember years ago, going to the baseball movie, The Rookie, with a rough and tumble 8 year old.  The boy loved baseball. Late in the movie, we watched the underdog-struggling-pitcher finally making it to the big leagues. The pitcher goes down the long hallway from the dugout after the game towards the showers. He …

100 days of no dessert Part 1

There are all sorts of reasons I find enormous value and joy in being a therapist. One of those reasons is the personal enrichment I gain from watching courageous people take risks in talking about areas of their life most people don’t even let themselves think about. I get a front row seat to courageous …

You are not your job

I am a therapist.  Yep. I am also a mother, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a friend, a cook, a writer, an eater, a teacher, a mentor, an auntie, a cook, a reader, a napper, a runner, a speaker, a walker, a parishioner, a sleeper, a Downton Abbey and Grey’s Anatomy watcher, a lover …