The Other Side of Nice

Tag: love

  • A Psychic Told Me to Throw Rocks

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    loriday1974
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    A week ago, I booked a reiki session that quickly turned to a psychic reading. Now, before you roll your eyes or assume I’ve gone completely off the deep end, hear me out. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that sometimes people can see things differently than we do. Whether that’s intuition, energy, life…

  • The Cat Didn’t Second-Guess Anything

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    loriday1974
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    Recently, my daughter’s boyfriend sent her a picture of the most beautiful little furball. She showed up on the steps of the cottage he’s staying at and helped herself to his lobster fishing gear like she had an open invitation. Make no mistake, this was no stray cat. We’re assuming it’s a female, she was…

  • The Noise Isn’t the Destination

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    loriday1974
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    “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every barking dog.” — Winston Churchill I read this quote recently and found it profoundly interesting, it hits a little harder when you’ve lived long enough to know exactly what those “barking dogs” sound like. They aren’t always the obvious critics or…

  • Waiting for the Bus: Recognizing Codependency and Choosing to Walk

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    loriday1974
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    My therapist once gave me a simple image that stuck: You’re standing at a bus stop, waiting to get somewhere you really need to go. The problem? The bus isn’t coming, who knows, maybe it’s delayed; it might come…eventually. So, you stand there. Waiting. Watching. Hoping. You don’t actually need the bus; you can walk.…

  • Has Worrying Ever Changed the Outcome?

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    loriday1974
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    Has Worrying Ever Changed the Outcome? I used to worry myself sick about everything. It wasn’t until I started therapy—after one long session where I poured out all my fears about my dad’s cancer and watching my kids struggle through different stages of life—that something shifted. My therapist paused, then asked me a simple question:…

  • The Quiet Power of Walking Away from Gossip

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    loriday1974
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    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…

  • Proof that hard seasons end

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    loriday1974
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    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…

  • You Are Not Everyone’s Emotional Lifeboat — Let Them Learn to Swim

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    loriday1974
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    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…

  • The Woman I Raised Is Teaching Me How to Be One

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    loriday1974
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    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…

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

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    loriday1974
    in

    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 great divide: walking my dad home

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    loriday1974
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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…

  • A clean place to stand

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    loriday1974
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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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    loriday1974
    in

    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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    loriday1974
    in

    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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    loriday1974
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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…

  • Divine timing and the quiet work of souls

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    loriday1974
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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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    loriday1974
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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…

  • Trust your gut – Always

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    loriday1974
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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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    loriday1974
    in

    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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    loriday1974
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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…