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Setting up a personal sacred space is not only simple to do; it’s fun and satisfying. You do NOT need an entire room or even a big portion of a room; you just need a small space to call your own. Stake your claim. If you don’t already have a place where you go to pray or journal or be in silence, take a look around your home and see what you can do. Is there a favorite chair near a window or wood-burning stove, a writing table in a quiet corner, a shelf where you keep favorite personal items or candles? Start there.

My sacred space has morphed and migrated around my house of the years. For the longest time, my sacred space was literally two shelves of a bookcase in my basement office, sandwiched between a cat condo and a video game console. I would turn my chair (or sit on the floor) in front of this space when it was time to pray or meditate. The shelves had a cross, an icon, and some favorite items gathered on retreats or given to me by friends. When I would come down to my basement office to write, just seeing that space would make my shoulders relax and my breath deepen. I loved that space.

For a time, I used our sunporch, although that’s a seasonal sacred space since it gets pretty chilly in an unheated room during upstate New York winters. I would go to that space, surrounded by windows on every side, and look out at the beauty of nature and pray the Liturgy of the Hours in the mornings. A cup of coffee on the table beside me, a candle burning on the electric stove and a cathedral of pine trees was all that space needed.

These days I am blessed to have a room set aside for work, prayer, yoga and meditation. A purple room, no less! I inherited the space from my youngest child when she graduated to her brother’s room. I didn’t plan on it at first, but as I started moving in books and icons and paintings, it became clear to me (and my husband, LOL) that this was becoming Mary’s Room. It had actually been my office before Chiara was born, so it felt like coming home. I have a meditation cushion on the floor in front of a small table that serves as my personal altar space. When I sit on that cushion, I can see out into the trees in the backyard and watch snow falling or branches swaying. I can hear rain pattering against the window or blink against the sun as it starts to sink low in the sky — depending on when I’m in my space.

My space has pinecones gathered on walks around the Abbey of the Genesee (one of my favorite retreat spots), sea shells and rocks from favorite places, an cross forged by a friend’s husband, a lotus candle holder that reminds me that without the mud, there can be no blossom. Rosary beads and mala beads, icons and inspiring images. Make your space your own.

The sky is the limit. In fact, if you are someone who prefers to be outdoors, you can set up an outdoor sacred space, or do your praying while you hike or snowshoe. Just find a place where you feel comfortable not only talking to God, but LISTENING for the still small voice. So often we go to God with a laundry lists of wants and needs and thank-you prayers, but on this journey there needs to be a time when we simply sit and wait and listen. That can be really challenging (something we will talk about more in Week 3.)

When you have a sacred space, you are more likely to go there to pray, to retreat there when you need peace, to seek out the space when you are confused or overwhelmed. It’s like an open door, an around-the-clock invitation to be still.

And wherever your sacred space, even if it’s a comfy chair in the corner of the usually busy living room, let everyone at home know that when you are in that chair early in the morning or late in the evening or whenever you set aside time to pray, you need silence and solitude.

Keep up the good work. Let me know how you’re doing in the comment section. And thank you for being here!

P.S. I’ve been hearing from some of you who are following through on last week’s suggestion to keep a gratitude journal. If you’re finding that practice helpful or have any suggestions or observations to share with the rest of us, leave us a comment on the original post or this one. We’d love to hear from you. .

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So here we are in Week 1 of our daily efforts to journey inward and discover our true selves and create transformation along the way. If you missed the first post on this, you can find it HERE. It will tell you what to pack for this journey (hint: If you have a spiral notebook, you’re pretty much good to go. The rest can be collected along the way.) The one “requirement,” and I use that term loosely, is a gratitude journal, because, trust me, it is such an easy way to begin to shift our attitude, and it’s really nice to be able to go back and look at all the blessings in our lives rather than journals filled with angst and woe. So today I thought I would start with that basic daily activity: gratitude journaling.

What does it look like? Whatever you want it to look like. Seriously. You can buy yourself the most beautiful leather journal with homemade paper; you can use a 10-cent spiral notebook picked up at last year’s back-to-school sale; you can even use a great big mason jar or some other container and squares of brightly colored paper. So many options!

Okay, now that we’ve got the actual journal, what do we do? Well, there are lots of ways you can choose to do this, but I’ll tell you my way, which is quick and so easy I (almost) never say, “Nah, I don’t have time.” Every night before I climb into bed, I take the spiral journal from my nightstand and date the entry. Then I write down three things from that day that I count among my blessings. (I number them consecutively so I can see them adding up over the months. It’s a banner day when I hit 1,000 or even 2,000 in a single journal, which I did back in December.) Sometimes the entries are so simple (the smell of coffee brewing in the morning) and other times sublime (someone getting a good diagnosis). Most days it’s somewhere in between. Once you start this practice, you’ll find yourself noticing things as you go about your day and thinking, “Oh, I can’t forget to write that down tonight.” Of course, you can always jot down those blessings as you go — on your phone, in a planner, whatever is handy. When I do notice something like that and I’m not near my journal, I often speak the blessing or happy moment out loud to memorialize it in some way. It makes it more real (and less likely I’ll forget it when I get to bedtime).

Here’s a sample from my own journal on Jan. 30, 2019:

• A plane, lights blinking, cutting across the night sky

• Two crows circling overhead gracefully in the morning

• Watching Chiara compete on bars

And here is a day’s entry pulled from the archives from that same date in 2006 (told you I’ve been doing this sort of thing for a while):

• For the dark, stark winter landscape of my backyard against the white night snow

• Watching “Magic School Bus” with Noah this afternoon

• For my home

So, today, this week, try to seek out the beauty and blessings around you, the miracles in your midst. Did something make you smile? Did something touch your heart? Did you just look out into your yard or across a room and spy something that made you happy or made you feel grateful. Write it down. The best part of this is that you don’t have to be a writer or a poet or a meditator or any of those potentially scary things. You just need a pen, a piece of paper and the willingness to notice the world around you in a more intentional way.

Try to go through your days with attention and INtention. This is the first step to reVolution, evolution, transformation and joy. Join me. And, if you’d like, share your experiences with this practice in the comment section. If you miss a day or two or ten, just pick it up and begin again. Always be willing to begin again. You don’t have to wait for a magical date on the calendar. Every day is an opportunity to start over. And isn’t that something to write down in a gratitude journal!

If you keep at this practice, it will slowly change how you see the world around you, and it really will make you more grateful for everything in your life, less likely to complain about the little annoyances, and more compassionate to the people around you. It doesn’t happen all at once, but little by little, day by day, year by year. Just begin and see what happens. If you write down three things every day, you will surpass 1,000 blessings in a year.

I’ve been writing about gratitude journaling for years (decades?), so if you’d like to read some of my previous stories and posts on this, you can start HERE

I hope to podcast on this topic later this week. I’ll be sure to share that recording if/when that happens.

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Remember to begin again each day. There is no start date, no end date, no “goal” you have to hit. Just begin. And then begin again.

Peace and Love,
Mary

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Mindfulness. Ahhhh…just saying the word makes my shoulders relax and my breathing expand. I love it because I know it works, BUT, that doesn’t mean I always make the time and space for it. I am the queen of multitasking, something I used to think was a good thing. Not so. Multitasking distracts us and makes us feel like we’re doing so much but, really, we are usually half doing a couple of things. I can’t listen to my daughter and scroll through Facebook. I might think I can do that, but she’s going to notice I’m not really there, even if I don’t. I can’t eat dinner and answer emails. Well, I can, but chances are I’ll finish the meal without ever really tasting it.

Multitasking is one of the biggest enemies of inner peace. It robs us of our balance and tricks us into thinking it’s the way to get more done or be more productive and prove we’re working hard enough to whomever it is we think we need to prove something — bosses, coworkers, friends, partner, parents, children, maybe even complete strangers. If we let our worth hang on other people’s opinions, we’re going to make ourselves crazy trying to be everything to everyone. So the challenge is to stop worrying about other people’s opinions and start paying attention to the still, small voice trying to be heard in the silence of your heart. To do that, you have to be mindful and prayerful and quiet. That’s the starting point. And the end point. And every point in between. Mindfulness always, or as often as possible. Just keep coming back to where you are right now without worrying about what’s coming next. It’s not easy to do, especially when many of us have jobs and home lives that keep us in full-time stress mode. Just keep starting over. Eventually it will become comfortable, maybe even “normal.”

If you can’t figure out how to make this mindfulness thing work in daily life, start small. With a cup of tea or a piece of chocolate or a quiet lunch eaten alone without distractions. We’re seven weeks in, so I know you know the drill, but in case you want a reminder, I’ll re-post the mealtime meditation bookmarks. Click HERE for the set of two bookmarks. And, if you missed this the first time around, here’s one of my previous blog posts on the topic: Mindfulness: It’s not just for Buddhists.

Keep in mind that mindfulness isn’t limited to mealtime, to be sure. Try it out when you’re driving to work, when you’re waiting in the car line outside school, when you’re on hold with customer service. Breathe, be present in that moment, and just do that one thing you need to do, not the 12 things everyone else wants you do to. Breathe. Exhale…

Here’s some musical inspiration to go with our theme of the week: “Exhale” by Plumb.

Oh God We breathe in your grace
We breathe in your grace
And exhale
Oh God we do not exist for us
But to share Your grace and love
And exhale

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What does a balanced life look like to you? When I hear the word “balance,” I feel the word “peace.” In my mind’s eye, the two are inextricably linked. And on some deep interior level, I know that if I can just find a way to bring some balance into my life, peace is sure to follow. But balance is hard to come by in our all-or-nothing world, and so we have to strive to be counter cultural, to look for ways to even out the highs and lows we typically traverse, to learn to be present wherever we are, even when where we are isn’t so hot, and to find beauty there.

As we delve into chapter 6, it’s time to take a closer look at ways to bring more balance to our lives. What makes you feel UNbalanced? Is it an overbooked schedule? A kitchen counter piled with clutter? The laundry overflowing the hamper? A work project looming in front of you? Where can you begin to make a dent and tip the scales back in your favor? I think that starts with recognizing that our lives will always seesaw back and forth in major and minor ways. The balance will be found somewhere in the middle of it. Balance doesn’t mean evening out every problem and glitch, but creating an interior space that allows us to stay centered even when things are tilting to one side. Prayer — as always — is key.

For the past few months, I’ve been committed to a fairly regular meditation schedule, missing only the occasional morning here and here. I can feel the difference. Even though these past few weeks in particular were crazy busy, I moved through them on a pretty even keel.  The rough edges of my psyche seem a little smoother. The things that typically grate and gnaw lost some of their sting. Balance. All of the outward situations are the same — same job, same stresses, same family commitments, same everything. Only one thing has changed: my willingness to sit down in silence for 15 minutes at the start of every day and listen for the Spirit. That one thing is making all the difference. Can I stick with it? Sure. Will I stick with it? It’s anybody’s guess. We don’t always do what’s good for us. But I crave balance, and I can see how the silence creates balance which creates peace, or at least peace of mind. During Lent, I’m trying to add in some silence before bed as well, although that’s been more of a challenge for me. I will begin again this week.

Where are you finding balance these days? What’s working for you? What’s not working at all? Share in the comment section and let us know how you’re doing.

This week, when you’re looking for a practical way to help make the Cravings changes more concrete, find just one thing you can do to foster balance. It could be silent prayer, or it could be a good old-fashioned closet cleaning session. Trust me, clearing out the garbage in your closet or drawers or desk will go a long way toward clearing out the garbage you hold inside. Open things up, clear a space — literally and figuratively — and watch how things begin to balance out.

I will TRY to be back tomorrow with a Chapter 7 post in order to get us back on track. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Thanks for being my tribe!

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I practically gasped at the enormity and clarity of the constellation’s outline, and I smiled at the familiar star pattern that has been my favorite ever since my third-grade teacher at Evans Park Elementary School showed me how to locate it—the three stars tight in a row marking Orion’s belt, making it easy to spot even on an overcast night, at least during these winter months.

What amazed me most of all that night was that I had almost missed all of that beauty, all of that splendor, not because I didn’t know what to look for, but because I simply hadn’t even bothered to lift my head and look up. So intent was I on just getting through the chore, I almost missed the magic. How often do we do that, rush headlong through something and miss the real moment, the spark of the divine right there in the everyday? And, even after we get a taste of that magic, how quickly we forget and go right back to dreading the chore, avoiding the task, averting our eyes.

A couple of months ago, I had a similar experience when our dishwasher died. Time and again, when we would hear the telltale ding of an error message, we’d re-run the cycle—sometimes four or five times in a row—in an effort to get the dishes clean without getting our hands wet. Finally, we surrendered, accepting the fact that for the foreseeable future we had no dishwasher. Dennis headed to the store to buy a drain rack so we could start doing dishes the old-fashioned way. One of our three children marveled at this strange contraption, wondering how it “worked.” Another saw me with my hands in sudsy water and asked if she might try since it looked so “fun.” I flashed back to my own young childhood, when our home had no dishwasher at all, and I was the nightly dryer of dishes, standing beside my mother begrudgingly with towel in hand.

As I soaked the dishes, up to my elbows in warmth and bubbles, looking out the kitchen window at squirrels and birds moving about the backyard, I felt…what was it? Peace. Maybe even joy. Definitely satisfaction. This long-lost simple pleasure, this chore, was, in reality, a welcome break from the chaos of life, giving me reason to pause, to stand in one place with nowhere to go and to meditatively move my hands in circles as I scrubbed the plates and pots.

Although I try almost daily to intentionally take notice of the everyday graces evident all around me as I go about my day, most of the time I’m too consumed with whatever is on my To Do list to bother to look up and take notice of the moments forming beautiful constellations against the backdrop of my life.

What chore do you trudge through impatiently each day, looking past the moment to when it will just be done? What would happen if you stopped for a minute and looked up?

This column first appeared in the Feb. 1, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

Photo by Adrian Pelletier on Unsplash

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Cravings is about finding middle ground. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition, where you have to forego favorite foods forever, or starve yourself until a headache sets in. That’s not a long-term prescription for health or happiness. But there is wisdom in the practice of fasting, and the Church gives us a beautiful template for learning how to live a balanced life. Throughout the Church year, there are seasons to fast and to feast, and there is “Ordinary Time,” when we are likely to be walking that middle way.

Whenever Lent rolls around, I suddenly find willpower I don’t have any other time of year. Why is that? Because when I combine a sacrifice — eating in between meals or sweets — with prayer and a deeper, more significant intention, I am able to hold myself to things I’d otherwise shrug off at the first sign of chocolate cake in the office kitchen or a bowl of gelato after dinner. Fasting without prayer is just a diet. Fasting or abstaining with prayer, however, elevates it to something completely different.

From Chapter 5:

The emptiness fasting creates will make us more aware of the injustices in the world and of our own comforts and supposed “needs.” Think of how often we say, “I’m starving.” Or, “I need” a cup of coffee, piece of chocolate, glass of wine, handful of nuts. Fasting helps us begin to distinguish between wants and needs, even when practiced in the most minimal ways.

Can you experiment with fasting or abstaining in some way this week — either giving up something for the entire week or for one day, depending on your age, health and ability? You don’t even have to fast from food. You could fast from Facebook or shopping or TV. Intentionally give something up and offer up the sacrifice for someone else.

A reflection from the end of Chapter 5:

So much of life

is out of balance today.

Too much, too little,

too caught up in the whirlwind.

The world insists we need

more, more, more, more,

pushing us to grab all we can.

But wait. Slow down. Stop.

There is another way.

Only by emptying ourselves out

before God will we find

fullness within ourselves.

HERE’s the link to a story I did on fasting for OSV Newsweekly a while back, in case you’re interested in more on this topic as we prepare for Lent.

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To be honest, the winter months don’t work in our favor on this front. I know here in upstate New York the cold, gray days make me less likely to stop at the store on the way home to pick up fresh produce and other ingredients I need to whip up something healthy. On cold winter nights, I’m much more likely to serve up a big bowl of pasta or order in a pizza. So we have to find ways to make it easier to do what’s good for us. Can you use your lunch hour to run out and grab some healthy ingredients for dinner rather than eating at your desk? Can you make a couple of meals ahead of time on the weekend, so you have something ready to go on a busy weeknight? Can you look at your schedule and plan a menu that will be realistic when all those events marked on your calendar roll around? I know I’m a great one for planning a healthy menu filled with lots of fresh veggies and unusual grains, but, come midweek, I can be found digging around in our basement freezer and pantry, hoping to find a bag of frozen string beans and a box of rice pilaf instead. Best laid plans…

This week, take some time to look at your calendar and your fridge and put together some meals that are fresh and healthy but not so hard to make that you’ll give up before you get started. Look for nights when you’ll have time to eat in peace and at a nice slow pace. Make the cooking itself part of your mindful practice. And never underestimate the power of simple foods — a side of fresh steamed broccoli with a squeeze of lemon, a plate of roasted carrots and cauliflower, a bowl of brown rice or a plate of salad piled high with healthy toppings. What’s your favorite healthy food?

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It was a SUPER stressful week, especially the weekend. To be completely honest with you, I’m in a terrible place right now, mentally and spiritually. Things have not gone as planned. Famous last words. So why does that still catch me by surprise and throw me off course? That’s the million-dollar question for me. And I’ll tell you right now, when things don’t go well and when things get stressful, I turn up the heat on myself. I pull out my worst “tape,” push my internal “play” button and let it rip. It’s not pretty or healthy, and it certainly doesn’t take me where I want or need to go, but it’s comfortable and familiar, the road most travelled, and so I take it. Even when I know I’ll regret it later, even when I know it’s likely to lead me to other unhealthy decisions — like eating the wrong food or staying up too late or skipping prayer time. This is why I’m head cheerleader for the tribe, because I have endless experience with this struggle. I’ll tell you this, however: Although I often feel history repeating itself in my life, the time I’ve spent working on my habits, journaling, and becoming more mindful have made me more aware. Even when I’m not following the Cravings “rules,” I’m well aware of where things have gone off track and how I might pull it back. The trick is getting from awareness to action.

This week, as we delve into chapter 3, we’re going to be focusing a lot on those tapes we tend to play, the words we say in our head, or maybe even out loud as we stand before the mirror. I always say that if I loved my neighbor as myself, it would be very bad news for my neighbor! I say things to myself, about myself that I would never say to or about anyone I cared about, or even about a total stranger. Why do we do that? Why is that comfortable? And how can we begin to backtrack to the place where those thoughts were created so we can dig them up, toss them out once and for all, and replace them with something that will lift us up rather than tear us down?

In chapter 3, I talk about the two sides of this, the fact that sometimes I am ever-so-grateful for my physical health, my material comfort, and the many blessings I have had over the course of a very privileged lifetime, one not without traumatic and devastating losses and crises, to be sure, but overwhelmingly blessed. And then there is the shadow side, the times when I look at myself, not just physically but on every level, and see nothing, absolute failure, zero, worthlessness. Unfortunately, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the shadow side, where my faults and flaws are magnified as in a fun house mirror and any potential reminders of anything good are drowned out by the drumbeat of self-loathing. It’s not pleasant, that’s for sure, but since I was a little girl, it’s been home for me, the place with which I am most familiar, the persona that feels most comfortable: failure, reject, misfit, lost soul. And that’s where I am today.  I say all of this in hopes that anyone else out there in this tribe (or lurking anonymously around the fringes) who has ever felt like this will feel less alone. We all have shadow sides; some of us just mask them better or are more adept at shifting the perspective from half-empty to half-full. What is your perspective today? Are you being unnecessarily hard on yourself for one reason or another? Are you working through the exercises and feeling positive progress? I hope it’s the latter, but don’t be dismayed if it’s not.

From chapter 3:

“It comes down to reprogramming ourselves, in a sense. We have to find a way to erase the negative tape that’s on continuous loop in our heads and replace it with something more positive, more realistic, more truthful. If we don’t change the mantra of self-loathing, our feelings of inadequacy will continue to lead us deeper into bad diet plans, dangerous eating disorders, and a warped perspective that colors not just our eating habits but every aspect of our lives.”

So how do we do that? If I wrote the book on it and still struggle with it, can we ever really change the tape? Yes. But it takes daily work. If you started jogging and worked up to a 5K run and then stopped your training, do you think you’d be able to do that same 5K three years later with no renewed training? Not likely, or, if you did, you’d probably be hobbling along by the end. This is about incremental but daily, constant awareness and transformation. I’ll give you a critical starting point: gratitude. Counting our blessings daily — even the little things that seem silly but make us happy — makes a difference in our perspective on life. When we don’t actively give thanks for the good in our lives, we tend to train our eyes on the bad.

More from chapter 3:

“Our focus on the seeming lack in our lives seeps into our relationships at home and at work, our commitment to our community and our larger world, and our devotion to our prayer lives and journeys toward God. It’s hard to move forward if we are glued to an image or a number. We imagine we’ll take the next step once we reach a certain weight or size, but we keep getting stuck, or at the other end, moving the goal posts. The result is a constant unhappiness and unrest that prevents us from becoming who we are called to be: disciples willing to trust, risk, grow, and love.”

So, gratitude…Have you ever used a gratitude journal? If not, give it a try. Each day write down three things you were grateful for that day. It can be something monumental, like getting a new job, but it can also be something simple and sweet, like having your cat sit on your lap as you relax before a roaring fire or the smell of coffee brewing on a quiet weekend morning. If you’d like to read more about gratitude, click HERE for a feature story I wrote on this topic for OSV Newsweekly a while back.

Also, if you’re not on social media, click HERE for a post I shared during the week about allowing yourself to thoroughly enjoy one of your “forbidden foods,” eating with attention and intention.

And HERE is one of my previous Life Lines columns on discovering our true self, in case that’s something you’d like to explore further.

The song I’d like to give you for this week has no video to go along with it yet, but I’ll post it just the same: Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken by P!NK, one of my all-time favorite artists.

https://youtu.be/rW7mBs8_9SU

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Things were not as peaceful or as mindful as I would have hoped. Home life was crazy; work was crazier. And sometimes I am my own worst enemy, making things more difficult than they need to be by getting in my own way. I plan to go for a walk but I haven’t taken the time to get out my winter boots and hat, so before I can go anywhere I have to dig through boxes in the basement and through baskets in the hall closet. By the time I was ready to leave I was frustrated and about ready to quit. I get up early to do some yoga, but struggle to get the Apple TV going because I never commit the dreaded remote-control routine to memory. I pack breakfast and lunch to take to the office but race through work at such a frantic pace that I forget to stop for breakfast at all.

This past week I definitely feel like I had a few take-aways:

• Spend more time prepping things so taking a walk, doing yoga, sitting down to meditation, packing lunch does not become an ordeal.
• Get to bed earlier so I’m not tempted to hit the snooze button when I should be getting up to pray or exercise or sit in silence.
• Continue with my new routine of listening to some select books on CD as I drive to and from work. It’s definitely making a difference and giving me an extra dose of daily peace along with a good kick in the spiritual pants.
• Accept that my life is simply going to be chaotic much of the time. With three busy kids, a very busy job, freelance writing, lots of chores around the house, the reality is that my daily life is often going to be noisy and not-so-mindful, and that’s okay. The goal is not to make my life silent so I can be mindful but to make myself mindful so I can maneuver my way through the daily minefield. It’s all in my perspective. The journal writing, spiritual reading, and silent time is helping me remember that.

Now we begin week two, Chapter 2 of Cravings: Dieting Delusion: Food Is Not the Enemy. As we move through this chapter, stop to think about the diets you’ve tried over the course of your lifetime. I’m sitting here shaking my head as I write this just thinking about some of the crazy plans I’ve tried over the years. In the end, none of them really worked. Why? Because those were just temporary patches, surface changes not meant to last, and everything hinged on the almighty scale. Sometimes it still does. Which is why I’m here, and maybe why you’re here.

From Chapter 2:

Even today, the control myth can take hold of me. I can feel totally confident and positive about myself and my life if my clothes fit a little bit loose and the scale shows me the right number. A few pounds in the wrong direction an my mood, my day, my life can take on the aura of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, not only with my looks but with just about everything. And that’s the crux of what we’re dealing with here. Whether we have to lose a hundred pounds or ten pounds, our self-worth should not — cannot — hang on a number or a diet plan. It has to be rooted in something deeper, something true, if we can ever hope to put a stop to these endless efforts to mold ourselves into someone else’s image of beauty or health or perfection. The first step toward that freedom is the acknowledgment, in the words of Alcoholics Anonymous, that only “a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

This week, as you keep your journal and take note of your moods and foods, start paying more attention to your beliefs about yourself. What is the tape that plays on endless loop in your head? Does your self-worth teeter from one extreme to another based on superficial changes or events? What are your triggers? Can you push pause when you feel things starting to head in the wrong direction?  Try to pull yourself back from the brink. Breathe, say a quick prayer, grab your journal, go for a walk, do something to shift the playing field and try a different approach. After all, the old ways haven’t been working, right?

If you have a minute, check in and let me know how you’re doing here in the comment section. If you have questions, feel free to ask them. If you don’t have Cravings and you need more information, tell me that as well. And if you just have a story to share, please do so.

And, now, here’s your musical inspiration for the week. I wanna see you be BRAVE!

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