Journey to Joy

I always tell my husband I am lucky because most men aren’t like him. He laughs. I tell him he should hold seminars for other men on how to be better spouses, or just better men. He laughs more. He thinks I am just flattering him. I base my (admittedly biased) opinion on some of…

I’ve always thought there are no coincidences. And while my husband and I love to plan our days, it amazes me how life can toss your To Do list out the window and show you what’s truly important. Any day you wake up, everything can change. When I woke up on January 11th at 6:30…

“Sometimes life knocks you on your ass—get up, get up, get up! Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s the ability to deal with them.” – Steve Maraboli I was reading an article in a parenting magazine that said there are two types of parents—frenzied/stressed or calm. I immediately thought, “That can’t be true….

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” –Sigmund Freud I was about 20 when the movie Pump Up the Volume came out. I loved it. At the time, the hotness factor of Christian Slater was a big draw … but it was really the message of the movie I loved the most—talk hard,…

If you asked me to rattle off a few of my flaws, my big mouth would probably make the top of the list. I am not great at keeping my opinions to myself. I sometimes offer advice when it was never asked for, and I reveal more on Facebook than my husband would probably prefer….

“The challenge of life is to be awake in your life and constantly participate in your life.” Susan Sarandon Most mornings my husband reads Dear Abby as he goes through the morning newspaper. He often says, “Babe, you have to read this one; it’s good.” Usually that means one of two things. 1. Someone has…

“Learn to value yourself, which means to fight for your happiness.” Ayn Rand I think there’s an aspect to happiness that doesn’t get enough of our focus. It’s being in the state of happy anticipation of an activity, event, moment or day that’s around the corner. Looking forward to something is a huge contributor to…

“You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.” – Iyanla Vanzant For most of my 20s and a good chunk of my 30s, I had a unique skill. I was particularly gifted at finding men to date who were…

I interviewed Wayne Dyer a few years ago and he said something that stuck with me. “Worry is the most useless of emotions.” I jotted it down in my notebook and made a mental note to think about it later. Worry? Useless? So we should aspire to get rid of worry? Worry was one of…

I’ve committed a few conversational etiquette crimes in my 40 plus years. In high school, I would survey about six friends to validate my own opinions. I’ve always had a tendency to analyze things to death, and through the years, friends and family had to listen … a lot. Then there was that period of…