These wise words from Khalil Gibran inspired me to look up the definition of generous, which is defined is “ liberal in giving; marked by abundance or ample proportions’ characterized by a noble kindly spirit.” Then I looked up synonyms for generous, which are words like unselfish, unstinting and free-hearted and I decided that I want to practice generosity!

When we give more than we can, we feel open-hearted and open-handed, but when pride prevents us from taking what we need, we feel small, constricted and closed off. In either case, what causes us to feel open or closed is often the presence or lack of shame.

Shame is the sticky, gooey energy that makes us feel unworthy, think we are not enough and it can cause us to believe that we are a bother and shouldn’t take up too much space.  Shame is always lurking in the shadows and makes us want to hide, close ourselves off and avoid exposure to keep us feeling alone and invisible

But here’s a secret I’ve learned from my own experience. Shame cannot abide in the energy of loving kindness, which opens your heart and naturally restores your generosity and your noble, kindly spirit. So when you practice loving kindness towards yourself, you can’t help but practice generosity and as an added benefit, you kick shame to the curb!

 If you are finding it hard to practice loving kindness towards yourself or others, I’d be honored to walk with you on your spiritual journey and help you with this.  If you want to learn more about online counseling with me, you can click on my Services page and if you want to keep reading more posts, click here for my Blog.
 
Are you on Instagram?  I'd love to connect with you there, so you can follow me @Delighttheworld.

When I was growing up I had five older sisters, so I was always thrilled when they’d let me hang out in their rooms and if I was really lucky, they’d let me listen to music with them! We had very strict parents, so every once in a while, my mother would forbid us to play certain songs in the house, which of course, only made them more enticing to listen to!

I recently heard one of these forbidden songs from my childhood and as I listened to the lyrics of Yummy, Yummy, Yummy I’ve Got Love In My Tummy, the child in me giggled in delight! I decided to play it for some of the children I work with who were struggling with sadness this week, and we danced and sang together, which instantly lifted their moods.  It was such a powerful reminder that regardless of the time and space between us (and the screens we have to use for online counseling) music connects our hearts and lifts our spirits, even in the most challenging times. I think the child in all of us could delight in listening to this song, so here’s a link to an old version of Yummy, Yummy, Yummy by Ohio Express, if you are in need of something to lift your mood! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4aQiFaCod8

It may feel hard to life your spirits right now, and I'd love to be able help you with this.  The nice thing about online counseling is that you don’t have to google a “ therapist near me,” because we can connect wherever you are from the comfort of your home! If you’d like to learn more about online counseling with me, you can click on my Services page and if you’d like to continue reading more posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

Are you on Instagram? I’d love to connect with you there - follow me @delighttheworld.

When I was training to be a therapist at the Gestalt Institute of New Orleans, my mentor Anne Teachworth would often quote the founder of Gestalt Therapy (Fritz Perls), who used to say “Lose your mind and come to your senses.” He wasn’t advocating that we lose our sanity, but rather that we lose the false grip of control we think have when we are trying to solve a challenge by thinking and analyzing it in our mind, without any awareness of how we feel about it.

Our feelings are like an internal GPS inside of us, which constantly guides us to where we want to go. But so often, we get stuck in our heads, attempting to mentally solve a problem without listening to the guidance of our feelings and then we get frustrated because we don't know what to do!  Sound familiar?

It's a bit like sitting in your car and programming your GPS, and then talking about it (and analyzing it) instead of following it, and then wondering why you aren’t getting where you want to go.  Our feelings are important messengers that can guide us about how to get our needs met, but in order to pay attention to our emotions, we have to feel them in our body, not think about them in our head.

Do you ever find yourself wondering am I depressed? Often, when clients explore this with me, they will say I don’t really know what I feel. If you don't know what you feel, you don't know what you need. Using your senses is a gentle way to start identifying what you feel (and thus need).  Then you can use your inner GPS to guide you in the best direction to get your needs met.

I you need help identifying what you are feeling right now, I'd love to help you with this, so  please click on my Services page to learn more about online counseling with me, and if you’d like to continue reading more posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

We had major plumbing challenges at my house last week and on several occasions the water was turned off for long periods of time. When I first learned about the magnitude of repairs that were needed and how long it would take, I wasn’t very happy to say the least. But I remembered that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, water is believed to be the most powerful element because it is completely non-resistant and can go anywhere. Since the entire house needed to be replumbed, and I didn’t want to stay in a hotel due to Covid 19, I decided to practice being completely non -resistant in order to keep my peace.

All week long I hummed the song Peace Is Flowing Like A River and was determined to go with the flow. I like to think that I go with the flow most days, but this experience helped me realized this isn’t really true - I usually have some plan or direction in which I want to go that sets the tone of my day.  But last week, almost every time I planned to do something, the plumbing situation required I re adjust so here’s what I learned about going with the flow.

Creativity can feel empowering.  We had an elaborate system of pots and pans to use for water and flushing the toilet, and I mastered boiling water on the stove for quick sponge baths and doing a load of laundry in the tub, which increased my confidence in my ability to be resourceful. Re-plumbing a house takes a great deal of coordination between many pieces and parts, so everyone ended up pitching in and I got to know some of my neighbors much better, and this was an added surprise. I also felt a renewed sense of gratitude for the luxury of having hot water to take a shower and a washing machine to do laundry, which many people do not have.

Practicing non-resistance can seem like we are passively accepting something that we don’t like or don’t agree with. But going with the flow last week showed me the great power stored in non-resistance. It actually felt expansive and liberating, allowed me to keep my peace, and invited more creativity, community and gratitude to flow into my life.

If you’d like to create more peace in your life, I’d be honored to help you with this, so you can click on my Services page to learn more about online counseling with me. If you’d like to continue reading more posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

Are you on Instagram? I’d love to connect with you there - follow me @delighttheworld.

I left the screen door to my patio open a crack and I only noticed it after an annoying mosquito zoomed around my office for the rest of the day. I’d forget about it for a while until it swooped down and whined in my ear while I was seeing clients.  For such a tiny insect it was extremely disruptive, and it made me think of these words from the Dalai Lama.  If you are feeling like you are too small to make a difference in the world today, I simply disagree.

I’ve learned from my own experience that sometimes the smallest things make the greatest difference. Maybe you stand up to an injustice a friend is experiencing, or say no to something that you believe is wrong.  It might not seem that significant to you, but it might mean the world to the person you are standing up for.

Or maybe someone has done that for you. If you’ve ever had thoughts like I hate myself, or wonder what’s the point of all of this, do you remember what made you feel differently or helped you to keep going and be willing to hope things might change? For me, it was always a simple act of loving kindness from one person that helped restore a sense of dignity to my soul.

Never discount the power you have to make a difference by deciding your presence is too small.  My friend the mosquito was a great reminder of that!

This is Harry! A dear friend gave him to me years ago on my birthday, because he wanted to encourage me to be who I am, believe in my ideas and have the courage to march to my own drummer.  Harry is one of my most treasured possessions so I was taken back when another friend once said to me “This bunny looks sad to me and he has beady eyes that sort of stare at me. “

 I love how old and worn out Harry looks because despite that, he still wears his finest attire, looks snazzy with his bow tie and most importantly, he keeps marching to his own beat.  When we are struggling on the inside or suffering in some way, it is easy to feel tattered, worn out, sad or maybe even hopeless. But that’s when you need the courage of your own convictions to keep marching on and honoring what feels right to you, to think, feel and do. And sometimes, you need someone (or some treasured gift or piece of art)  like Harry to remind you of this. When we are feeling worn out and sad, that’s when we need to be loved and encouraged the most, not judged for our appearance or how we feel. I don’t think Harry looks sad or has beady eyes – I think he is looking at me and saying “Never give up!”  

 If you feel are feeling alone, different or alienated from society in some way, it can be hard to find the courage to march to your own drummer.  I’d be honored to help you with this, so you can click here on my Services page to learn more about online counseling with me, and if you want to read other posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

Are you on Instagram?  I’d love to connect with you there  - you can follow me @delighttheworld.

Sharon Salzberg is a Buddhist teacher and writer who shares insight on the practice of loving kindness, and how we can extend it to others and to our selves. Sometimes, if we make a mistake that hurts someone, it isn’t easy to extend loving kindness to ourselves and this happened to me last week.  I hurt someone’s feelings and as soon as I realized it I felt bad.  I apologized sincerely, but later on, I spiraled into regret and self-judgment.

 I took immediate steps to correct my mistake so there was nothing more I could do about it, except to be mindful and more aware the next time a similar situation might arise. So in a way, I felt complete because I had done my best to take responsibility and clean up my side of the street. I was able to send loving kindness to the person I hurt, but I wasn’t able to do that so easily for myself.

I did my best to practice it and then remembered an insight Sharon Salzberg shared from one of her teachers. It isn’t our negative thoughts that are the problem but it is glue that we glom onto them that creates the sticky mess. I definitely glued my regret and self-judgment onto my awareness that day, and if you have ever tried to scrape a label off that is stuck to a bottle, you know how hard it is to wash away the glue.

I kept practicing and eventually I felt myself get unstuck. It was such a powerful reminder that loving kindness can free us from the painful thoughts and feelings that stick to us like glue, and liberating ourselves from our attachment to this pain, is how we can open our hearts and hold more love and compassion for ourselves and the world around us.

Perhaps you are experiencing some regret that you'd like to free yourself from, I’d be honored to walk with you on your spiritual path and help you make peace with yourself and perhaps another. You can click here on my Services page to learn more about online counseling with me, and if you want to read other posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

Are you on Instagram?  I’d love to connect with you there  - you can follow me @delighttheworld.

Prayer of St. Francis

Make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy

O Divine Creator grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to Eternal Life
Amen

I have always loved the prayer of St Francis and if I had a rule for my life, this would be it. Being a channel for peace is easy to say but hard to do so I have found that this prayer can give you wonderful journal ideas for how to apply these words to your life.  Maybe you can explore one line a week in your journal, and then set an intention to do one small act a day.  I believe this is how we start becoming a channel for peace and love in the world, and you have never been needed more.

If you’d like help applying the Prayer of St Francis to your life, I’d be honored to walk with you on your spiritual path.  You can click here on my Services page to learn more about online counseling with me, and if you want to read other posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

Are you on Instagram?  I’d love to connect with you there  - you can follow me @delighttheworld.

I love these wise words of Carol Gilligan, a psychologist who researches ethics, community and morality. “There is no voice without a relationship and no relationship without a voice. “

One of the most fundamental needs we have in relationships is to be able to express ourselves and be heard.  To me, this is the basis of love. Whether you are using your voice and being heard, or you are hearing someone use their voice, the message is still the same. You are saying to that person, your presence matters to me, and there is no greater way to honor and value the dignity of another human soul.

Whenever I’m helping clients learn how to set boundaries, we explore their ability to speak up and use their voice, as well as how well they can listen with respect to another. Expressing yourself and being heard are at the core of every relationship, so if you are struggling with healthy boundaries, I’d love to help you with this.  You can click here on my Services page to learn more about online counseling with me, and if you want to read other posts, you can click here to return to my Blog.

Are you on Instagram?  I’d love to connect with you there  - you can follow me @delightheworld.

 

Do you have a particular flower that reminds you of someone you love? My friend Patty send me this photo of her artwork and the lilac in it made me think of my mother, and her mother, who I never got to meet.

When my mother was growing up she had five older brothers who were a lot older than her, and all of them served in the Army during WWII. This must have been incredibly difficult for my grandmother to cope with  and my mother use to tell me stories of what it was like for to grow up with all her brothers in the war. She often told me how every spring she loved to play underneath a canopy of lilac trees growing in their garden, so I always assumed this was the reason that lilacs were my mother’s favorite flower.

Every year on Mother’s Day, I’d send my mother a big bouquet of lilacs and once she told me a story that deeply touched my soul.  One spring during WWII, my mother’s brother Frank came home on leave for a weekend, and they had a lovely visit before he returned for duty a few days later.  Sadly a few weeks after that, my mother's brother Frank was killed in the war.

Mother’s Day arrived shortly after Frank’s death and that year, my grandmother received a beautiful bouquet of flowers. They were delivered with a hand written note from Frank that said Happy Mother’s Day.  Love, Frank.

Frank must have gone to the local flower shop when he was home on leave and he wrote that note a few days before he died, never knowing it was the last gift he would give his mother, which was something my grandmother would treasure forever, as did my mother and now, so do I.

Today, I think of my mother, grandmother and Uncle Frank whenever I see or smell a lilac. It reminds me of how important it is to reach out to those we love and let them know that their presence matters, no mater the distance, or the boundaries of time and space between us.

They say violet colored lilacs are symbolic of the spiritual realms, and I can’t help but think that flower delivery was inspired by the wisdom of divine timing. Today, whenever I see a violet lilac it’s a beautiful reminder to me that we need to keep our hearts open to love and look for beauty even amidst our deepest pain and sorrow.

If you are feeling alone and struggling with grief, I’d love to help you find comfort and support as you navigate through your pain, so please click on my Services page if you’d like to learn more about online counseling with me.

On you are Instagram? Id’ love to connect if you follow me there @delighttheworld and if you'd like to keep reading more posts on my blog click here BLOG

Nature offers us a great example of how to live in harmony with one another but we tend to dismiss it, because we have forgotten that as human beings we are part of nature and the natural order. If you think about the organs in your body; your heart doesn’t compete with your liver or your stomach to get the resources it needs. Instead, all of your organs work together and if the natural harmony between them is interrupted, that’s when symptoms of disease begin to manifest in your body.

The same is true for the collective body we inhabit, which is our planet Earth. As we grapple with the diseases of disconnection and disharmony that plague our world like inequality, racism, greed and injustice, many of these have been normalized as the way things are, but they are anything but natural. At their root is a rationalization and justification that certain segments of the population are separate and different from us, and somehow don’t count or matter, which is like saying your heart or your stomach aren’t necessary or important, which of course isn’t true.

Part of our shared humanity is remembering we are part of nature and everything in nature works together and eventually, gives up its form to serve a higher system. That means it is natural for us to live in harmony as part of an interconnected web of being, and to be of service to the world around us. Yet, we have created systems and institutions that allow millions of people to feel as if their presence doesn’t matter and prevent them from accessing the resources they need to thrive.

All of this is out of alignment with the natural order (which we are part of, whether we want to recognize it or not).  But the wisdom of nature constantly reminds us that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Just like every organ in your body is unique and plays a vital role in making your body the living, breathing miracle of life that it is. Diversity is also natural, necessary and miraculous because it sustains life and enables us to thrive.

But some people need others to think, feel and look like them and fear anyone who doesn’t, and this disease of superiority and distrust is the greatest enemy of harmony. It creates a discord that defies the natural order where all things are designed to work together and serve a higher cause. And worst of all, it denies your natural birthright to be valued and experience that your presence matters in this world.  

You’ve probably had the experience of listening to music that is not in harmony, which can hurt your ears and make you want to turn away. That’s what is happening in our world today and I think each one of us has the responsibility to turn our heads towards one another, listen, and seek the beauty and gift of each person’s presence, even if that person looks, sounds and behaves different from us. This is how we create something whole that is more than the sum of its parts - like a more loving, compassionate world that preserves the dignity and value of every human soul.

If you are feeling alone in the world right now, I’d love to help you to feel seen, heard and to believe that your presence matters. You can click on my Services page to learn about online counseling with me.

Are you on Instagram?  You can follow me @delighttheworld, and if you want to keep reading other stories, you can click here on my blog

As a therapist, but more importantly as a human being, I believe this is how we heal individual and collective trauma.  We sit and listen.  We create a sacred space where we bear witness and honor another human being’s degradation, despair, abuse, shame, torture, oppression and any other demeaning insult to the soul where someone felt, unseen, unheard and experienced that their presence did not matter.

Even if you think you bear no personal responsibility for another person’s suffering, you can apologize on behalf of all the people who never apologized and never will apologize, because to have your suffering denied and silenced is as painful as the original indignity, if not more so, and is a violation of Divine law.

Then, in your own silent reflection, you can ask the light of your soul to illuminate any place of darkness and shadow within you, that might allow you to keep hidden the truth of where and how you have ever harmed another, been blind to another, made another human being feel less than or unworthy. You can take responsibility for how and where you added to the cruelty and unkindness in the world. Then vow to do better and do this.  Examine your beliefs, known and unknown, and change them if they are out of alignment with love, compassion and preserving the dignity of another.

I know from my own efforts to practice this, that healing trauma is difficult, messy and uncomfortable.  But this is the work of the soul.

I listened to Cornell West address the anger and turmoil in our country and he quoted the Irish author Samuel Beckett with this powerful message. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.  I’ve been thinking about those words every since, because like many of us, my heart has broken at the cruelty and hatred that exists in our world in what seems like a never ending cycle of racism, oppression, injustice and human suffering.


I believe that failure is good for the soul and having failed many times in my life I speak from personal experience!  It can be very painful the first few times and difficult to face the judgment of others, but over time I discovered great power in every one of my failures. They created a deep reservoir of wisdom, compassion and determination inside of me that today I rely upon to help others. Looking back, I can see things in a different light, and regard those so-called failures as necessary lessons and steppingstones that guided me to become the person I wanted to be.

I think the key to failure is conceptualizing it as a temporary experience that is teaching us something that our heart and soul are longing to know.  Failure can empower us to think and behave differently and I think that is what Beckett was trying to say. Many of our efforts to address racism, economic inequality, poverty and injustice have failed, so we tried again, but as we watch what is happening in our society today, it is easy to feel hopeless about the heartbreak and suffering these failed attempts have caused.

So how do we fail better? First, we have to be willing to keep going no matter what, find the wisdom that is encoded in each failure, and then use it to refine our next effort to get a better result. But there’s another expression about failure and success that I think trips us up.  You’ve probably had someone say to you at least once in your life If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. I think this is terrible advice!

As s a social worker I’ve experienced programs and initiatives that didn’t work successfully the first time (often due to lack of funding and appropriate resources) and instead of reevaluating and changing course in a way that could better serve the needs of clients, the same programs were launched over and over again, somehow expecting different results.

We can’t try, try again doing the same things that didn’t work the first time. We have to try something different to address the issues of race, poverty, discrimination and injustice and I believe this starts with exploring the world inside of us. It means asking where and how have we been blind, insensitive and ignored the wellbeing and needs of others? Why (and where) have we felt threatened by others who are different from us and needed to make them less than us, in order to feel better about who we are? These are difficult questions to ask and as a therapist I’ve found that the answers are usually connected to personal experiences we had in our past that we haven’t been willing to explore.

But if we are blind to unresolved pain in the world inside of us, we will be blind to pain of other in the world outside of us, so I believe our task is doing the work of our soul. This is what empowers us to keep going and gives us the courage and fortitude to be wiling to fail, try again and fail better, until eventually, we succeed.

If you are feeling alone struggling to heal any pain inside of you, I’d love to help you with this, so you can click on my Services page if you want to know more about online counseling with me.

Are you on Instagram?  Follow me  at https://www.instagram.com/delighttheworld and if you want to continue scrolling through other posts on my blog, click www.delightheworld.com/blog.