Uncategorized – The Other Side of Nice

The World Feels Like a Dumpster Fire — Here’s How to Take Care of Yourself Anyway

It’s hard to ignore it. The constant stream of bad news, division, uncertainty. The feeling that no matter where you look, something is burning — and not in a way that brings light or warmth. It’s exhausting to exist in a world that feels like it’s always on edge. Calling it a “dumpster fire” might…
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The Quiet Power of Walking Away from Gossip

Gossip is one of those things that slips into everyday life so easily we barely notice it happening. It can start as concern, curiosity, or even connection but in the mix of all of that, it often turns into something heavier. Something that doesn’t sit quite right. I’ve been on both sides of it. I’ve…
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Proof that hard seasons end

There’s a morning every spring where I get up for my daily walk and there’s a noticeable difference in the air, today was that day. There is usually still snow piled along the driveway, although most of it has melted here on the east coast where I live. Mornings still bite a little when you…
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Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Tries to Forget

We like to think that when something bad happens, we can just “move on.” We tell ourselves, it’s in the past, I was overreacting, or I shouldn’t feel this way. But in reality, your body remembers. Even if your mind tries to reason it away, even if you tell yourself it “wasn’t that big of…
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You Are Not Everyone’s Emotional Lifeboat — Let Them Learn to Swim

Depending on where you are in your own healing journey, you may or may not realize that you’ve spent a lifetime treading water for everyone else. Whether that means you were the one who stayed calm in chaos, or listened without interrupting when a friend or family member needed to vent, or maybe you’ve just…
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The Woman I Raised Is Teaching Me How to Be One

When I was growing up, being a “good woman” meant being agreeable. It meant keeping the peace and not making things awkward. There was an unwritten expectation to smooth things over when someone else made a mess and to carry more than your share all the while calling it love. The word no didn’t come…
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The Overburdened Woman

If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly running on empty — juggling work, caregiving, friendships, appointments, emotions — and still feeling like you’re not doing enough… you’re not imagining it. I once heard Elizabeth Gilbert say: “Nearly all the women I know are stressing themselves sick over the pathological fear that they simply aren’t doing…
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Wanderlust meets routine

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

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…
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The far side of the moon

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,…
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The great divide: walking my dad home

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…
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Nothing else matters

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…
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A clean place to stand

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…
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Emotionally available, energetically protected

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…
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Choosing the right people

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…
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You Don’t Need to Become Someone New

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…
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Holiday Families

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

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

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?…
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Boundaries without guilt

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…
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Category: Uncategorized