Moving Forward

Over the last few years, I have learned that time is so very valuable. After going through the pandemic and all the events over the last decade, I am so very grateful to be alive, to have the ability to help others and to grow. Actually, 2025 will mark a major life marker this year, as I will be turning 50 in the middle of 2025 . After meditating, reflecting on 2024 and working on my vision board over the last 3 days, I have decided that my Word of the Year is (drumroll......)  is THRIVE.  I have read that the action of thriving, prevents burn out, assists our growth, connects us to be fully present with others and alone. Thriving is a process to becoming physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy, not perfect. Hoping to apply many of the lessons from 2024, to continue to connect with others, to distance myself from people, situations, or activities that are not contributing positively to my life. Thriving can help me to view life from an abundant lens, not a scarc...

Last year my vision for 2024 was peace, and I decided to study peace in depth and to take a year to reframe and better learn how to handle conflict. Many have expressed to me the power of words, but I can honestly say that I really have developed a new appreciation regarding the power a word can have. Within a few days into 2024, our world was turned upside down, with several personal storms entering our family the month of January. I found at the end of the month, I was in prayer, seeking spiritual guidance, counseling, and support. God shows up in times such as this to help us fine tune our spiritual walk and I quickly learned that my response to unforeseen tragedies and trials through community and prayer brought in complete miracles.  Light became possible in a very dark time because I choose to believe and trust in others. I let go and found that 12 months later, relationships grew stronger, and we are finding healing, which was only made possible through the action of peace i...

Reflecting on the Power of Gratitude for 30 Days to conclude 2024! Day 1:  Grateful for my mom, dad, and grandparents. I know that life had not been easy, that they do the best they can, and know that I was blessed to have a family that instilled a sense of service to others and faith.  Day 2:  Rest, recovery, and opportunity to start the healing process for my body in physical therapy are all things I am grateful for today. I can’t believe Thanksgiving break begins now.  Day 3: Grateful that I have been blessed with collaboration opportunities with Dartmouth, a supporting department, and our eclipse collaborative partners.  Day 4:  Grateful for time with Billy Jack, beautiful sunny weather, and memories made. Day 5 & 6:  Nolan made it to Alpine safely and so did we, time together playing games, preparing and eating great food, and for our home. Day 7:  We had so much fun putting up Christmas decorations yesterday as a family. I am so very gra...

I am so very grateful that I am learning how to recognize better approaches to self-care. I realized this morning that I began this blog in October 2024, a decade ago now. At that time, I had no idea how much growth spiritually, emotionally, and professionally I would experience these last 10 years. I remember during one of my coaching sessions around 10 years ago, I was introduced to this idea of a gratitude journal. This is when I began this blog as an outcome of that session. It is a little ironic that ten years later, I am back here again working to revisit this same idea, a gratitude reboot.  It is a way to reprogram and reboot your thinking, a mind shift if you will. I am working with a professional career coach to help me continue down a new path toward working on a few goals I have. I have experienced so much change in the last decade that I do think I need a year to really process all of these experiences, sit with the emotions of them all, reflect on what I have learned, ...

 Over the last few weeks, I have felt an immense need to write and journal my thoughts regarding my inner journey and continuous work to heal and grow toward an improved life pursuing the path of peace. This spring immediately brought about an awareness of "peace" that comes in the midst of a great storm. It was perhaps the worst 2 weeks of my life. After a decade of struggling emotionally to restore relationships with my children walking through a decade of spiritual warfare, I naively believed it was finally over. After all, we had such a peaceful and wonderful Christmas holiday. I could feel my family finally coming together. And then like a thief in the night, the darkness nearly swallowed my family whole. A year previously, my estranged oldest son asked an honest question regarding our youngest son Nolan. Apparently somewhere along the way during the last decade, a very ugly and false idea was placed on his heart that the cause for the divorce was that Nolan was not his ...