The skit featured comedian and satirist, Al Franken. Stuart, played by Franken, was famous for his gaze in a mirror and repeating the phrase, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it people like me." So just imagine learning about the idea of self-affirmation while Stuart Smalley was gaining in popularity. 

We don't like to dwell on our past. You and I have made plenty of mistakes in our past. Like me, I am sure that you have plenty of things in your past that are best forgotten. It's time to hurry up and get to the future. Move on. Life's too short to overthink about what once was. But what if I told you that pushing our past further behind us in a rush to get to the future might not be the best idea? What if I told you we all have a story to tell, and whether it is good or bad, it all matters? 

There is a little secret to it. And it’s all how you see the other person. What if you saw the other person as someone who needed just as much grace and love as you do? Because, like I said, if you’re breathing, then you have been wronged—meaning you have wronged another person.

The thoughts you have most--the thoughts that dominate your everyday life and activity--are generally the thoughts that will move you in any given direction. If you tend to think negative thoughts, that bad things will happen, or that you're a terrible person etc., your life will move in that direction. Conversely, the opposite is true. 

But we don't do this with our goals in life. We are taught as kids to dream big, shoot for the stars--all that inspiring stuff. But I don't ever remember anyone telling me about all the tiny steps I needed to take to get there. So what happens? We end up staring at a mountain to climb, but we are too stressed, too busy, too broke, too ill-equipped, and too tired to bother. So there sits your dream, the top of the mountain seemingly unattainable and unachievable.

In the middle of a busy day, do you ever just stop? When you have a list a mile long, do you ever hit the pause button? When your brain feels overwhelmed and fatigued, do you just take a few minutes and turn it off? I’m not talking about the kind of scheduled time off or breaks we are most familiar with when we talk about rest.

Go play! We all need to hear and heed those words on a regular basis, no matter what our age. As we get older, play doesn’t come as naturally as it did when we were kids, but if you’re trying to add more play into your life, I love the idea of looking back to childhood to rediscover and reintroduce favorite forms of play from years gone by.

It was never meant to exist apart from a relationship, but pornography doesn’t include any of that in it’s equation. Porn can’t teach us what good sex is because it can never be truly good itself. It’s a fake. It’s entertainment. It’s a money maker. It’s a relationship free turn-on which, we understand initially, might seem kinda like a dream come true. That’s its hook.

“Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

So I got back at them. I made new friends. I found a new tribe, a new community. But these were not good people. Okay, so I really wasn't consciously trying to get back at my parents, but I did get myself mixed up in the wrong crowd. It was almost an overnight transformation. I became someone entirely different. 

Consent starts small. Yes, we typically use the word to refer to asking and/or giving a clear response regarding sex, but learning about consent doesn’t start there. It begins with understanding that your body is yours and yours alone. No one should ever do anything to it that you aren’t completely comfortable with. Ever.

On one of our epic adventures, we simultaneously got lost and heard my dad calling. In an instant, we went from sheer joy to terrified. We have to go home now! But we have no idea how to get there. We weren't prepared for this moment. The goal of getting home was clear as day, but we didn't have the knowledge or the tools to adapt to our new and unknown environment and find a way home. 

“I don’t think I can do this,” I murmured out loud.
“What?” My husband asked. My voice went up a hormonal octave.
“How can I possibly be a good mother if I can’t even figure out how to pick the right bottle!?”

There’s a name for what I experienced in the store that day.

Maybe she felt bad about the divorce and that’s what convinced her to let me go, I don’t know, but what I do know is that every minute of my time there was heaven. I literally whistled while mucking out the stalls.

Basically, it can be used to treat all levels of stress: serious recent trauma, well-established stress patterns, unclear psychological issues, and proactive efforts to establish better health.

You don’t have to wait until you feel like you’re going to blow up. Just tap for a few minutes.

One that I can remember happened when I was five years old. It was Halloween, one of my favorite holidays growing up. This particular year however, would be a little different. Because Halloween fell on a Saturday, and my brother's birthday was just three days before, my parents decided to celebrate Halloween and a birthday all in one day. Unfortunately, they didn’t plan on me getting sick.

What do I mean? Let me show you. Let’s say that one of your siblings has taken something of yours without asking. You’ve already talked with them in the past and told them they have to come to you first if they want to borrow something, but here they are wearing one of your favorite shirts again.

We are all my 8-year-old. While we may not drop-kick people in the face and throw temper tantrums (at least I hope you don’t), we all allow our minds to tell us lies, that if we are not careful, we will end up believing. 

That section, the opening passage to “29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life”, always cracks me up. The author is so honest with her feelings about this advice! And yet she agrees to give it a try. As a woman struggling with the daily frustrations of dealing with Multiple Sclerosis, Cami Walker decides to do the crazy thing and stop thinking about all of her problems just long enough to give away one thing every day.

Fixing this broken world may be too tall a task, but we are required to navigate it. We have to figure out a way to not allow the turmoil and brokenness of this world to poison our hearts and minds. Because our hearts are out of balance, our minds become clouded, filled with uncertainty, self-doubt, and lies--basically, chaos ensues.