When I lead [self-acceptance] workshops, I often give participants a series of prompts that I call Three Small Questions. The catch is that they aren’t small questions at all. They are often big questions but what I want from them is short, simple, one sentence, direct answers. I ask the questions, and my students have about […]
Some say college is wasted on the young. So many of us look back at our own college years and realize what we could have done differently to make the most of them. While we can’t go back, we certainly can offer our sons and daughters our best advice to help them make the right […]
With the start of school around the corner, mamis are making all sorts of to-do lists in their heads: school supplies, bus routes, and extra-curricular activities. And while all those things matter, the most important thing to take into account is that we as parents need to be good role models for the high school […]
There is knowing what you need to do to be healthy and then there is doing it. And that’s just the rub for most of us, isn’t it? We know what we need to do. We rationalize not doing it for a moment, and that landslides into every moment. Or, at least, that is how […]
I love a hot mess of a closet. Well, not the hot mess itself, but I do love taking on a hot mess of a closet. Once, when my sister was moving, I tackled her closet with particular zeal. In the midst of making my sister whittle her coat pile down to 15 and her […]
January is National Mentoring Month, and January 26 is Thank Your Mentor Day. And while every single mentor engages with a person whose development they care about without any expectation of a thank you, I know that there is an infinite amount of satisfaction that comes from hearing that you’ve touched someone’s life in a […]
In the late 1990s, I was a high school teacher in Charlotte’s inner-city. My students had stories that were so similar to mine: lower middle class, immigrant, minority, trying desperately to make their way in a world that didn’t always seem them of worthy of a shot. As a teacher, I had a sense of […]
I was twenty-five when I learned that my wellness was in my hands. As a third year teacher, I was fully immersed in my career. I taught. I coached. I directed the student activities program. In a bit of prescient wisdom, one student wrote in a thank you note to me, “you give until I […]
A multicultural Christmas is becoming more and more frequent in today’s world. “Who is this, mommy?” We are on our third round of this particular line of questioning. My three year old looks at me earnestly, eagerly, wanting to make sure he gets it right. “That is baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” I tell him. […]