Write with TLC

2024 has found me, us, the world. I keep searching for meaning in the moments, large and small, that made up 2023, globally as well as personally. There are disappointments, challenges, losses, and triumphs dotted throughout the year. Somehow today it is the little kindnesses that stand out to me in a sea of painful moments. And, I wonder if sometimes we forget that a little kindness, a little love, a little compassion goes a long way toward making life bearable for those in challenging circumstances. My problems this year pale in comparison to worldwide atrocities. They were still challenges I had to face and handle. Those challenges taught me some lessons about the people in my life as well as about myself. Frankly, I don't want to talk about my personal 2023 right now. Relationships change, grow, end, and begin. People lift us up and people let us down. Good things happen, and bad things happen. The world around us can be incredibly kind and just as cruel. And through it all, we...

Forgiveness is not some supernatural event that fixes everything. It can't be. Asking it to be is too much to expect as well as absolving us the work it takes to right a wrong or at least acknowledge a wrong that can't be righted. Forgiveness is all about accountability and absolves no one from the need for accountability. Forgiveness is essential to life. It allows hurts to mend, amends to be made, and offers a way to move forward. Sometimes that forgiveness allows people to move forward together, but sometimes it helps them move forward apart. When they move forward together, that's growing closer. When they move forward apart, that's finding closure. Both are important at different times in life. Forgiveness isn't something we do for the other person. It's a gift we give ourselves. It's a letting go of what's beyond our control. It's an acceptance of what happened and whose accountable. Forgiveness allows us to stop clinging to the mud miring us i...

What now? The end of 2022 is upon us. In a few hours, it'll be 2023. How was your 2022? Funny how I haven't heard that question asked much lately. But then again, I've been housebound due to a foot injury for much of the last few months. As I've stated many times over, I don't really get the big deal about the end of the year and the beginning of a new one. Life goes on regardless of what number is on the calendar. That said, I think 2022 has been both good and bad, like most years. On the professional side, I'm rather happy with the progress I made on my poetry. I'm not as happy with the progress I made on the novel I'm working on. I'm happy with the cards and other products I've created on  Zazzle . I'm not as happy that both this blog and my cooking blog, Vegan Cooking with TLC , ended up rather neglected this year. I'm happy I posted more reviews on Reviews with TLC this year and figured out how I want to approach reviews going forwa...

I have left another social media platform, Twitter. I had long considered leaving, but Elon Musk buying the company was the final feather for me.  I archived my data and deactivated my account. It didn't feel as liberating as when I deactivated my Facebook account, but that's probably because I hadn't really used Twitter in a long time. I'd also never used it quite like I did Facebook. I don't think I'll miss Twitter.  Based on what I've seen in the news thus far about how Twitter is now being managed, I'm quite certain I made the right decision. It seems the platform is headed in a direction that's antithetical to the way I live my life and the way I want to move about the world. Inviting hate into my life is unproductive. There comes a time when we have to decide if a company that is antithetical to our values deserves our patronage. I have decided neither Facebook nor Twitter deserve mine. The benefits I get from either one don't outweigh the ...

An analysis of my life has shown me time and again how interwoven strength and vulnerability are. I can see times in my life when I struggled to be strong and when I hid my vulnerability. I have often put up a tough exterior to hide my incredibly fragile vulnerability as well as my incredibly fragile inner strength. It seemed like my inner strength intimidated people and my vulnerability offered them ammunition against me, so I learned to hide both behind a tough exterior. I feared having my vulnerability used against me and my strength scaring people  away . Hiding both my strength and my vulnerability became yet another mask I wore to  protect myself from the people in my life. I didn't quite understand how to be both strong and vulnerable with others without putting myself at risk.  Other times I'd overshare with people as a test to see who would stay and who would leave. I get to choose who sees different aspects of my life. I didn't understand the idea that some peop...

Recently while looking for a way to address my waning ability to focus, I remembered a presentation on ways to get back on track when one's writing suffers I'd been asked to give a few years ago. I dug through my files and found it. As I read it, I realized many of the items could apply to anyone, not just writers, who felt overwhelmed, stuck, or discouraged while working on a project, but I also realized I've developed new techniques since.  So, before we start, let's take a moment. I'd tell you to close your eyes, but then you couldn't read the next part. Take a deep breath and exhale. Another one. Let go of your day. Focus your thoughts on a project that you're struggling to complete. Don't focus on the why, just on the project itself. Imagine it completed and how you feel. Imagine abandoning the project and how you feel. Imagine working on it and how you feel. Now, I suggest you close your eyes as you imagine all that again while you slowly inhale an...

Sometimes we're going about life and all seems to be running smoothly. The bills are paid. Work is going well. There's even a few dollars in the savings account. Family and friends are healthy and happy. Pets are doing well. We even have time to play. Life is working. We relax. We think "I could get used to this." Then boom... boom... boom... Life interrupts itself. Still, we're certain we can handle what's coming our way. This one thing and that one. It throws our schedule all wonky, but it's temporary. We can handle it. We know we can. We set up systems and plans and schedules because we know that's the best way to keep on track or at least stay close to on track. But... Life has other ideas. The next thing we know, our priorities have completely shifted and we're doing good to keep the basics done because life has decided all our planning is a joke. Life sets out to prove that all those ways we learned to cope with the expected unexpected won...

As I watch reaction to the Corona COVID-19 virus, I'm struck by the extremes. I see every reaction from panic to those who are mocking anyone who takes it seriously. I have one friend who is a health professional who is mocking people for taking the threat seriously. Sighs! I suppose I fall someplace in the middle. I don't feel panicked. I also won't be mocking anyone for taking the threat seriously, even if they take it a bit more seriously than I do. Perhaps they have a good reason. For me, I'm choosing to take precautions, perhaps a few more than usual, but I'm not drastically changing my life. Given my whole food plant-based diet that focuses on anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant foods and my overall good health, if I get it at all I'm likely to be one of those people who get it so mildly that my risk of spreading it would be higher than my risk of getting seriously ill. So, yes, I'm being a bit more cognizant because my immediate circle of loved o...

I'm not one to think the changing of the year changes much... It's just another day, but I have to admit 2019 was a tough year. Friends, family, and loved ones have faced challenges I could do nothing about. I've faced my own challenges which pale in comparison to what people I love dearly have faced with courage and aplomb. I've had to face my own limitations in ways I never anticipated, but there they were shining in my face refusing to be denied. There is only so much I can do, and sometimes even that just isn't enough. But that doesn't mean I'm not enough. As I look toward 2020, I can't help but think that next year has to be better, yet the realistic side of me knows many of the challenges are still in the middle, no where near the resolution, and in some cases the only, or at least likely, resolution isn't desirable anyway. Maybe, just maybe, I'll handle them better than I did in 2019. So, this isn't going to be a romanticized r...

Sometimes we set goals and think we have everything all figured out only to have life shift under our feet like sand on the beach. Then we have to figure out what to do. We can give up. We can switch directions and look for better footing. We can re-evaluate the path we're on. We can keep digging our feet into the sand refusing to accept reality. I've done all of these at one time or another. This year was a year of shifting goals, and for the first time ever I felt like I moved with the changes without completely sinking into the sand. I felt like I kept my goals rooted on a steady foundation even when I faltered. I started the year with several goals. As the year progressed, I began to see how some of those goals needed major adjustments while others needed minor adjustments and still others needed to be packed away for the time being. As I face the end of the year, I can see clearly that my goals for the year are still in flux. I'm not going to meet a couple of...

For the past year or so, I've been researching morning routines as a way to improve productivity. I'm always looking for ways to improve my productivity, so I started studying this idea of a morning routine. As I watched videos and listened to talks, I thought about my own morning routine. We all have a morning routine even if we don't think we do. The morning routine consists of the things we do each morning as we prepare for our day. Some are the usual - brush our teeth, shower, etc. Some are more personalized - our chosen workout if we have on, meditating, a cup of coffee or tea, etc. As I looked at my morning routine, I started to question if adding some of the things I was learning would improve my overall productivity. I already made my bed, practiced yoga, and meditated every morning. That seemed like a good start. But... there were all these other things I could do. I found several different recommendations for writing in a morning journal or writing morning p...

Gratitude has become a bit of a buzzword for focusing on the positive in one's life. Technically, though gratitude is simply the state of being thankful; however, we often attach meaning to gratitude that often gives it a hint of the supernatural. When I started actively practicing gratitude in 2011, I had a purpose. I wanted to focus on the positive in my life in order to bring more positive into my life. I didn't quite realize there was already so much positive in my life I was downplaying or not noticing at all. The more I practiced gratitude, the more I realized what I was really practicing was noticing and embracing the positive in my life. The more I noticed and embraced the positive in my life, the more positive I found, but, as I also stated in The Dark Side of Gratitude , I also noticed the negative in my life more distinctly as well. As I noticed the positive in my life, I started working at cultivating more positive in my life. I worked at it. I discovered ...

Peace is a practice, not a goal. I used to think if we could just reach peace, everything would be perfect. We'd somehow transform into utopia. But, at the same time, I didn't believe peace could ever be truly achieved. In my search for peace both in my own life and in the world around me, I've come to see peace as more about how we live, think, and interact than it is about checking off a box as a mission accomplished. That shift in perspective has made my goal to cultivate a climate of peace in my life much easier. If we live in a climate of chaos, then chaos is what prevails in our lives. If we live chaotic lives, we bring chaos to the world around us. If we allow the chaos in the world to dictate our lives, we bring chaos to our lives. Early in my life, I thought life was chaotic and there was always some catastrophe lurking around every corner. I accepted that as a reality that could never be changed. I never felt a moment's peace while in that state of ...

I missed a goal last week, and for once I'm okay with that. I'd set myself a goal, a challenge really, to post on this blog once a week for a full year. Last week, I missed my first week since starting the challenge at the beginning of January. After I sat and stared at a blank screen for hours without being able to type a single word for two days straight, I finally had to accept that I wasn't going to post anything. Eventually I realized that I was exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally, so I let it go. In the past I would've felt guilty. I would've beat myself up. I would've decided I was a complete failure. This would've lead me to even more negative and mean self-talk. This time, though, when those voices started whispering in my ear, I decided to talk to myself like a friend instead of a boss. I sat quietly and thought about what's been going on in my life in recent months. Then I decided to indulge in a bit of self-care, not anythi...

Sometimes it feels like there's nothing left to say. It feels like everything that could be said has been said. There are times when we have repeated ourselves so many times, we start to think the message will never be heard. Does it really matter what we communicate if the words go willfully unheard time and again? I'm not sure, but I know we can't stop speaking up. I can't stop speaking up even when I'm exhausted and it feels like no one cares about facts. Sometimes what seems so obvious to me is completely lost on other people. I want to believe that at heart people are good, but I'm not as sure as I used to be. As I talk to people, even people to whom I'm close, I often feel like we're experiencing the world from completely different places and that stops us from finding a way to meld the worlds we experience in a way that benefits us all. It's one thing to agree on a set of facts but to have differing opinions about what those facts mean....

Authenticity... Have you ever met someone and immediately felt their authenticity? Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like an impostor? Have you ever feared someone seeing through a carefully crafted image you'd cultivated? Have you ever feared your authentic self would be hated or maligned? Have you ever feared your authentic self would invite ridicule and pain? Have you ever feared your authentic self would expose your vulnerabilities? Yes, I have. I most definitely have. And, if you have, too, then you and I have that in common. It's sometimes difficult to be authentic when you know the person you are will be deemed unacceptable, particularly in your own close knit circle of friends and family. When you're told often enough that you're not good enough, not perfect not, not acceptable enough, not lovable, you begin to believe it even if you don't admit it to yourself. As that message sinks in, it becomes easy to put on a mask in order t...

As my birthday approaches, I'm thinking about life and death. I'm thinking about love and loss. I'm thinking about memories made and memories to be made. These thoughts aren't new, but they especially poignant right now. I've never minded growing older. I'm one of those people who falls in the "better than the alternative" camp for sure. You either grow older or you die. It's as simple as that. Given the two choices, bring on the aging even with all its challenges. Life isn't perfect, but it's good. I can honestly say that. I spend much of my time focused on work that brings me joy. I'm sheltered, fed, healthy, and happy. Yet, I know that could all end with a few wrong decisions or some event beyond my control. Last week a high school classmate died only a few days after his birthday. He was my age. I felt a strange sense of loss at reading about his death. I hadn't seen him in a really long time, and we no longer had anythi...