The Other Side of Nice

Author: loriday1974

  • Wanderlust meets routine

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    People love to say that life isn’t meant to be lived on repeat. That we aren’t meant to wake up every morning, pour the same coffee into the same mug, drive the same roads, and fall asleep exhausted just to do it all again tomorrow. Travel quotes flood my social media this time of year…

  • Hurt People Hurt People… But I’m Tired of That Being an Excuse

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    Hurt people hurt people my therapist said it to me years ago, since then, I’ve read it in books, heard it in every self help podcast and I’ve repeated it myself and it’s true; pain that isn’t healed often spills out sideways through sharp words, emotional distance, defensiveness, addiction, control, or silence. I understand all…

  • The far side of the moon

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    My daughter was the first person to show me an appreciation for the moon. From the young age of two, I can still picture her sitting in her little pink Barbie Jeep, pointing up one evening and saying, “the moon, the moon.” From that moment on, she wanted to stay up late for every supermoon,…

  • The great divide: walking my dad home

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    This spring will mark three years since my dad died of cancer. Do you ever look back at your life and divide it into “before” and “after”? For me, that moment was losing a parent. When my dad first told me he had colon cancer, I was in shock. I never imagined cancer would touch…

  • Nothing else matters

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    I used to tease my son that the reason he had anxiety was because he listened to heavy metal music. It was too much for my racing mom brain on the way to school. “We should listen to something less intense,” I’d joke. Truthfully, I believe music was his escape — just like it has…

  • A clean place to stand

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    Have you ever caught yourself saying, “What did I do in a past life to deserve this?” No? Just me?  I often muttered this when I was being tested through rough times. I look back at the version of myself that I was in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and I’m proud of who I’ve become…

  • Emotionally available, energetically protected

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    I used to take everything to heart. If someone was upset with me, I’d replay the conversation for days. I would spend hours crafting the perfect comeback in my head, only to keep it there. If something didn’t go as planned, I’d feel like it was somehow my fault and replay it until I was…

  • Choosing the right people

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    I’m an avid listener of the Mel Robbins podcast, so when I saw an episode last fall about the 80-year Harvard study on what makes a good life, I was excited to listen. A couple years back, my youngest had just gone off to college and was taking a sociology course. One night, she told…

  • You Don’t Need to Become Someone New

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    Every January, for most of my life, I made the same New Year’s Eve promises: This year I’ll lose weight. Spend less money. Get myself to work on time (when my kids were little—lol).And every December, I’d find myself wondering where the year went and what happened to all that motivation. We’re told that when…

  • Holiday Families

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    Holiday Families, sometimes you hear that and think, not me! And yet, there’s something undeniably bittersweet about it. You know the type; those people you love deeply yet only see when there’s a turkey in the oven or stockings hanging on the mantel. They’re family, yes, but the rhythm of life seems to hold us…

  • Why I chose to stop drinking in a world that doesn’t know how to stop

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    I chose to stop drinking regularly two years ago.  When I say that, I’m not claiming to be on a sober journey and no, I don’t have a problem with alcohol.  I just noticed weekend after weekend of going without it, I was happier, I was sleeping better, and I had some spare change in…

  • Hi, my name is Lori and I “add to cart” for sport

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    How many times have you told yourself this holiday season, “I’m not going overboard this year” or “I’m all done shopping,” only to walk into a store and magically find more things someone in your life would “love”? My husband says if our Amazon driver misses a day, he’s going to file a wellness check.Honestly?…

  • Boundaries without guilt

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    In a recent post, I spoke about how I slowly started realizing my worth.   The word boundaries always felt heavy and selfish to me. My belief was simple: if I loved someone, I had to prove it by giving them everything—my time, my energy, my peace. Saying no felt like letting them down and…

  • Divine timing and the quiet work of souls

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    It’s a small world!We’ve all said it. We’ve all heard it. That moment when you meet someone who knows your cousin’s best friend’s sister — even though they grew up hours away — and you just kind of laugh and shake your head like, How is that even possible? But the older I get, the…

  • If you want a village, you have to be a villager

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    We’ve all heard the saying “it takes a village.” Usually, it’s in reference to raising children — but honestly, it applies to almost every stage of life. We all crave connection, support, and a sense of belonging. I’ll be honest: I’m an introvert. I do love people when the time is right, but being social…

  • Rewriting my inner voice

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    If there’s one voice that’s followed me through every stage of life, it’s the one inside my head: the critic. You know the one, the voice that whispers you’re not enough, you should’ve done better, they’re upset because of you. For far too many years, I listened to that voice without question because I thought…

  • My Reiki journey

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    stock photo My first Reiki session was not at all what I expected. I knew they worked with energy, but honestly, I didn’t even know what that meant.  I read the description of the session when I booked it – “a relaxing experience”.  I was surprised when the practitioner started crying almost as soon as…

  • Trust your gut – Always

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    A few years back, when my daughter was still in high school, she ended up at a friend of a friend’s house one night where a party was going on. Some of the adults there were doing things that made her uncomfortable — things someone even tried to tell her were “perfectly normal.” She didn’t…

  • Making peace with my past

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    I’ve lost count of the years I carried the weight of my past mistakes like a heavy coat I couldn’t take off. Exhausting! Every wrong choice, every argument, or every time I fell short was a reminder that I wasn’t enough. I used to think that if I could just fix the present, I could…

  • How I finally learned my worth

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    Photo credit: Jordyn Day It took me far longer than I care to admit to finally like who I am and celebrate my worth.  It wasn’t until I was in my very late 30’s that I started to see that I was a good person who deserved to be happy. Codependency taught me to look…