Health & Fitness

Somebody once said there is no difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones aside from the way we use them.  Life has taught me that while one can put a stumbling block in my way, I am the one who decides whether I am going to use those stones to get ahead in life.  The older

It’s easy to fall into the habit of simply mouthing the words to familiar Scripture verses, slogans,  or prayers such as The Lord’s Prayer or The Serenity Prayer instead of carefully pondering the words.  When I really think about what I’m praying, I often find one special phrase jumps out, such as “accept the things

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.“  (Thorton Wilder)   I gaze out the window. The sun is shining after days of pounding rain.  I am grateful for days of gloom as our Mother Earth needed a long refreshing drink.  Yet I am very

A number of you commented on my recent blog about detoxing our brains.   Here are some additional concepts and thoughts that may help you detox from negative self-directed messages.  They’ve certainly got me thinking about the many ways I create problems for myself. –What they say about me says a lot more about them

  “It’s not the answers you get but the questions you ask, that’s all important,” my dad used to tell me.  He was convinced that it’s in framing our questions that we begin to define the various components making up an issue or problem. I thought of Dad this morning when I read one of the

As news cycle follows news cycle, I find special meaning in a line from The Little Prince.   “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret.  It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.  What is essential is invisible to the eye.“   Is that why we humans find working together so

With Spring in the air,  it is becoming easier to focus on gratitude.  Spring in Adams County is something to behold! Gratitude, you see,  is good for my mental health.  It’s good for my shattered soul, and it’s keeping me physically healthy.  The Psalms, one of the most popular books of all time, is filled

I was reminded last week that I am a grateful creature of habit.  I  have some fairly fixed routines that help me enjoy each day.  I sleep until about 7:30 each morning, get up, have my coffee, walk with my friend, eat breakfast, blog and do what household chores there are to do.  Then and

What are we to do when we become world-weary?  Overwhelmed by bad news?  Discouraged that the bad guys just keep avoiding any serious consequences?  Feel everything is too much trouble that nothing seems to make any difference?  When such feelings take over, I am reminded of a story we Mennonites like to tell about Orrie

Positive thinking goes nowhere unless it is followed by action. That’s precisely why we say the road to hell is paved by good intentions.  Meaning to do something and actually doing it are two very different things.  Most of us are procrastinators, one of those character flaws many of us humbly ask God to remove

Self-acceptance and care are much easier to talk about than to practice.  It’s so easy to push our basic physical and emotional needs to the side because most of us grew up being told it is important to put others first; that pride in self and self-confidence is somehow sinful.  Yet self-negation, self-pity and viewing

Over the years,   I have read many definitions of codependency.  All relate in some way to discounting our own needs and feelings and looking to others to validate and make us happy.   After all, we live our lives in relationship to others, our environment, our culture, and our jobs, so why wouldn’t we

I locked myself out of my house the other day.  I wanted to give my new neighbor a key since we were going away for a week,  so I grabbed a fistful of keys,  stepped outside to make sure I had the right key, and….  You guessed it!  I locked myself out!   Fortunately, it

 I’m a great one for shoveling clutter into drawers and closets,  but that just means going through every paper and envelope when I’m looking for something specific.   I didn’t find the address I’d been looking for this morning, but I did discover a scrap of paper with a scribbled quote.  “Resentment must give way

Today Is a day for gratitude.  In fact, every day is a day for gratitude.  Since now is all I’ll ever have, this moment is the only moment I have for which to be grateful.  And I am grateful. Extremely grateful.   Just having returned from sharing breakfast with a friend, I am very aware that

 Sometimes we gut react to a situation, impulsively decide to take a risk, to speak out, take a stand.  I think of my quiet, introverted, shy husband who decided after 9/11 that declaring war on Iraq was not the appropriate way to respond to those horrendous events.   Crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, in constant pain,

It’s one of those dark rainy winter days for which I am profoundly thankful.  With so many areas of the world suffering from drought, we here in south central Pennsylvania are much blessed.  So far, we’ve been spared many of the extremes in rainfall, temperature,  and storms that have been devastating others.  The effects of

Mary Davis has a simple formula for happiness.  “Shine brightly.  See beauty.  Speak kindly.  Create joyfully.  Live thankfully.”  If there was ever a time for adopting her formula it is now.  I’m no Pollyanna, but I discovered long ago that negative thinking sets me up for unhappiness and failure.  In fact, viewing everything through a

“Modern American culture is fairly empty of any suggestions that one’s relationship with the land, to consumption and food, is a religious matter.  But it’s true; the decision to attend to the health of one’s habitat and food chain is a spiritual choice.  It’s also a political choice, a scientific one, a personal and a

Somehow  a year has flashed by, reminding me of a story in which a great  king challenged his subjects to create works of art depicting their ideas of  peace.   Paintings flowed into the castle.  Beautiful pastoral scenes.  Pictures of smiling babies, children playing.  Grazing animals, flowing streams, fields of flowers.  Yet the picture that

With winter’s dark stay-inside days, I’ve been reading feel-good books and watching Christmas movies.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with escaping into once-upon-a-time and what-if moments.  That’s part of self-care.  Besides, it’s the rare book or movie that doesn’t have some insight tucked inside the story.  That happened with Richard Paul Evans’ Finding Noel when several quotes

Attitudes, it’s been said, are simply deeply entrenched habits of thought.  The good news is: we can change our habits and thoughts,  The downside of recognizing that attitudes and feelings are no more than habits is that changing our habits and thought patterns  is hard work and takes time.  A long time.  As Paul Myer said,

 I’ve had an excellent companion these past few nights when sleep eluded me.  Lousie Penny’s latest novel, The World of Curiosities.  I am so grateful I am still able to read, as books have been my companion since first learning to read.  When I am down,  a feel-good book can help me rediscover the beauty

 Perhaps it’s because we are approaching the shortest day of the year, but the evenings seem excessively long and lonely.  While I am discovering many advantages to living alone, the house sometimes feels achingly empty.  I miss him.  God, but I miss him.  However,  instead of focusing on what’s no more, I am determined to

Sun streaming through the bedroom window called me awake this morning. Not ready to get up, I snuggled deeper into my bed and began listing all the little things welcoming me into this new day.  The feel of crisp clean sheets.  Sunshine.  A warm bedroom.  Being able to wiggle my toes.  The luxury of rolling

I’ve been reading Erica Bauermeister’s delightful book, The Lost Art of Mixing.   It’s not the greatest piece of literature ever written.  The storyline is simple and uncomplicated, but her use of language and word pictures are heartwarming and vivid.  The Lost Art of Mixing is one of those books that leaves you feeling hopeful about the future and

The older I get, the more grateful I become.  The other night our little CoDa group worked on the 11th step.  “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for God’s will for our lives and the courage to carry that out.”   When I

I’m still pondering the who or whose “I am” question.   Descartes said, “I think, therefore, I am.”  I have no idea what that means. To be truthful, I can drive myself nuts asking questions such as, “who am I?” There are many ways to describe myself.  I am female.  I am a widow.   

Mary Davis has a simple formula for dynamic living.  “Shine brightly.  See beauty.  Speak kindly.  Create joyfully.  Live thankfully.”  If there ever was a time when there are good reasons for unhappiness and despair, it is now.  Yet, precisely because these are challenging times, it is vitally important we implement Mary Davis’s suggestions.  Negative thinking

John 1 opens with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  Through him were all things made that were made, and the Word was the source of life, and this source brought light to all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness

At our CoDa meeting, last night,  we talked about the 10th step.  That’s the step in which we take time each day to review our successes and our failures.  Unfortunately, most of us have been programmed to focus on our failures rather than our successes.  We’ve learned how to blame and shame ourselves when we

  There’s a phrase  in the familiar version of the Lord’s Prayer that troubles me:  “And lead us not into temptation.”  How or why would a loving God deliberately lead us into temptation?   It simply doesn’t make sense.  In fact, the more I delve into theology and religious literature and the answers we humans have