When we hear stories, our brains sync and minds meld. We tend to think, “What’s in it for me?” so here’s some information you may find helpful. When you read or listen to facts, or watch a PowerPoint presentation, the language processing parts of your brain…

We often say that women should support one another. We celebrate the idea that every woman has the right to live life on her own terms. Marriage or not. Children or not. Career or not. City or country. Gray hair or hair dye. Hormone replacement therapy or not. It sounds wonderful. The reality, however, is often quite different…

I heard a simple line in a movie the other night: “What doesn’t bend, breaks.” It wasn’t meant to be profound. It was just a passing remark before the story moved on. But it stayed with me. As I was getting ready for bed that night, another image appeared in my mind. I could see an entire riverbank covered with smooth river rocks…

I was sitting in a circle of people I barely knew when it happened. A laugh. Not a polite one. A deep, from-the-belly laugh that felt like it came from somewhere I had forgotten. I didn’t realize how long it had been until it came back. I wasn’t looking for it. Joy just showed up. Here are five ways I’ve learned to practice it…

I grew up being told not to judge. Maybe you did too. In my house it came with a Bible verse attached – the way we heard it, judge not, lest ye be judged – and somewhere along the way I turned that into a simple instruction: the judging itself was the sin. A good person doesn’t size people up. A good person gives everyone the benefit of the doubt…

When the summer of 1969 rolled around, I had just turned 15. I vividly remember the day my mother came into my room and handed me a round ticket to Lausanne, Switzerland, to spend a summer at their International Teen Camp.

“There will be teens from all over the world,” she told me, “It will be good for you to get out of the city.”

I’m not sure if it was turning 70, surviving cancer or simply having lived enough life to understand that there is nothing worth sacrificing your peace and well-being over. Through the years, I have done what most people (especially women) have done. I’ve taken care of everyone else, until there was nothing left for me…

Somewhere around my late 50s, I noticed a pattern in nearly every woman I knew, including myself: we were remarkably good at giving other people permission to live boldly, and remarkably bad at extending that same permission to ourselves. We’d tell our friends, “Go ahead and take that trip, you’ve earned it.” We’d tell our daughters…

The people who irritate us most are often the unpaid teachers we never would have hired.
There once was Miss Cranklepants, Mayor of Sigh Town, Who wore her complaints like a glittering crown. “That fellow’s too noisy! That lady’s too loud! And don’t get me started on That Smirking Crowd!”

A woman shared something with me recently that I suspect many women quietly feel. She smiled and said, “I spent most of my life taking care of everyone else. Now that it’s finally my turn, I don’t quite know how.” Her words stayed with me. Not because they were unusual. Because they were so familiar…