L.I.V.E. Life Inspired Views for Everyday

Send us Fan Mail There are two precious books in my personal library. One I received from the Ramker family when I retired, and one I received from my friend, Beth Wilson, for Christmas. The titles are, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse , and Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse, and the Storm , both by Charlie Mackesy. They are about four animal friends and filled with w...

Send us Fan Mail Elena Aguilar says in her book,  Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators,  "A substantial amount of our ability to be resilient is fostered in our daily habits." We often focus on how we can make daily tasks easier or how we can circumvent doing a hard thing to prevent taxing our time and energy. What is the cost of bypassing hard things? I hadn't thou...

Send us Fan Mail When I was a little girl, my favorite thing to do for fun was to play "house." I would spend hours in my make-believe-house that I made in my room. My dad built me a kitchen sink, stove, refrigerator, and cupboard. I loved playing "house." Do you remember your favorite pasttime when you were a kid? Now go forward to today. If you were given the time and choice...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Edith Eva Eger, survived the concentration camps during World War II. She came to America and became a mental health therapist. Eger stated in her book, The Choice: Embrace the Possible, " that we remain victims as long as we hold another person responsible for our own well-being." As she tells her clients, "When we blame each other for our unhappiness, we avoid...

Send us Fan Mail Metaphors are my favorite way of understanding life, science, behaviors, almost anything. Therefore, I'm constantly on the lookout for nuances in social situations, profound things people say without even knowing they were profound, or reactions to things so that I can put them into a story for better understanding. Noticing is my hobby. But there are many things I probably d...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most powerful pieces of wisdom I got from my dad was when he told me, "Always assign people value." People yearn to be noticed and valued. I think it is instinctive. Some time ago I shared the story about a nursing student taking a chemistry quiz. The last question on the test was, "What is the name of the woman who sweeps the floors of our building?&quot...

Send us Fan Mail Long ago I came upon a quote that says, "Words are a powerful vehicle. They can give life, or they can take it away." How true. How many skills and gifts have been left uncelebrated or unused because someone spoke of them with words of criticism instead of encouragement? We all bear some of those wounds. However, the power of words, when focused for good, can have life-c...

Send us Fan Mail My friend, Diane Quail, inherited a "seam ripper" when her grandma died. She had no idea what it was. When she learned that it was used to rip out stitches in a garment or something that had been sewn, she was eventually led into the world of quilting. She loved it so much that she became a designer and published quilt patterns. All because she learned about the seam rip...

Send us Fan Mail When I was a little girl, my dad's nickname for me was, "Mrs. MaGoo." He probably coined the name from a popular children's cartoon in the early 50's and '60's called, "Mr. MaGoo," who was a blind, kind, elderly man and was always mistaking something for what he thought was really there. We do the same. Catherine Ryan Hyde wrote a thoug...

Send us Fan Mail The book,  The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance by Zach Mercurio, has become a favorite of mine. It is applicable to anyone because it teaches skills that ensure that those around us know they are valued and significant. It's similar to giving and receiving love. People don't give and receive love in the same ways. Learning what expres...

Send us Fan Mail In the first season of Ted Lasso, Nate Shelley is introduced as the quiet, insecure "kit" man for the soccer team. When Ted asks his name, he doesn't believe he heard him right and says nothing. Ted succeeds in starting a relationship with him and in the end, he becomes one of the coaches, all because Ted showed him value. He let him know that he had significance in...

Send us Fan Mail Has someone ever told you a story about another person and you respond with, "Yup, that sounds like them." Or have you seen or heard other telltale signs by the way of something said or shared or done and you immediately know who it was? People come to know us in so many ways, but definitely by our words, attitudes and choices. It is wise now and then, that we take inven...

Send us Fan Mail How often have you heard someone say, "Well that's a first!" Or maybe they say, "Well, I had a first today!" Firsts are fascinating events. Some of them are powerful enough not only to stay with us in memory, but sometimes they change our lives. Probably because of the brain structure, the role of the amygdala, we remember a lot of our firsts because they...

Send us Fan Mail When I was in high school, I had a friend who loved quotes like I did. We found one that left an imprint on me for all these years. It is not that I am following the wisdom within this phrase faithfully, but having it memorized and referred to often, makes me mindful. The quote says, "While you are dreaming of the future or regretting the past, the present, which is all you h...

Send us Fan Mail The famous former Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius wrote, "In the end, character isn't defined by grand gestures, but by the small moments when we think no one is watching. It's our daily choices - our response to rudeness, our handling of power, how we treat friends, children, the elderly - that reveals the core of who we are." I love that. Thanks for listening.

Send us Fan Mail There are some things in life that are "wants," and some things that are "needs." Art sometimes seems like a "want," like "I want to learn to draw," or "I wish I could sing." However, it is different from the "need" for art. Art is as old as civilization. It has survived when human survival was threatened. It is like the...

Send us Fan Mail Algorithm is defined as a procedure for solving a mathematical problem that frequently involves repetition of an operation. Repetition. Repeating something we do or think over and over, creating a pattern, which leads to learning and remembering. Like one of my favorite quotes by Frances Hodgson Burnett, "You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them u...

Send us Fan Mail One day, when I was a TAG teacher in Forest City Elementary School, our school counselor resigned. I happened to meet Dave Cunningham, the former school counselor and now the assistant principal, in the lobby the next morning. I asked him if he was going to apply for the counselor position. Dave said, "No, I thought you would." Those five words changed my life. Five litt...

Send us Fan Mail One of the daily feeds I get in my email is  The Writer's Almanac.  It recounts birthdays and anniversaries of famous people of the arts or historical events. I enjoy reading how some of the authors, musicians, or artists were enlightened by an experience or some inner need to write, draw, paint, or make music. It amazes me that they could not say no to the need within to do...

Send us Fan Mail We all handle stress in different ways. Some ways are healthy and some not so healthy. But however it is handled, we all need to deal with it from time to time. I will never forget hearing Dr. Amid Sood speak in a TEDx talk once. He described all these terrible things that had happened to him from cancer, to heart attacks, to strokes, it was a list that almost made you gasp that a...

Send us Fan Mail Leaving a place you have loved and moving toward another opportunity always carries mixed emotions. My dad was a pastor. While in the seminary, he and some of his classmates wrote a book compiled with stories each of them had written describing how they received the call to the ministry. My dad had been a farmer and thought he would always be a farmer...until he felt called to bec...

Send us Fan Mail I have three wonderful books by Kobi Yamada. Their titles are, What Do You Do With an Idea, What Do You Do With a Problem, and What Do You Do With a Chance. These titles spurred an intriguing question. What do you do with a word ? One word can change a life, a career, or a relationship. We have so many opportunities to use a word to do something with our lives. All we have to do i...

Send us Fan Mail There is a philosophy in Japan called Nagomi. It's an ancient word that focuses on calming. It's derived from the Japanese verb, "nagomu," which means to calm down or be comforted. When things get so busy you wonder if you are ever going to get all things done, you need something that brings you balance, that encourages you to trust that everything will be acco...

Send us Fan Mail I grew up always wanting to be liked and accepted. It was hard for me to understand how someone got the courage to disagree with another's opinion or suggest what they wanted to do instead of going along with the crowd. I never wanted to risk doing those things because I wanted to be liked. During my doctoral studies, we were given an assignment to write a growth plan, giving...

Send us Fan Mail As you know, I have been writing in my journals since 2004 after a young English major from St. Ben's University, named Katie Silus, introduced them to me on a plane from Denver to Minneapolis. We exchanged addresses before disembarking and two weeks later, I received a small Moleskine journal and a salsa recipe in the mail from Katie. She changed my life. I am in Journal #23...