A friend and I were talking about how similarly we feel about certain experiences in shidduchim (what makes us feel stressed, pressured, or judged), and how we have found that other people feel differently. This reminded me of one of Gretchen Rubin’s Secrets of Adulthood: We are mostly alike, but our differences are very important. I also thought about …
It comes so much easier for me to be hopeful on other people’s behalf than for myself. When I’m feeling the pain, I can’t see my way out of the pain. But when I look at other people in their situations, it is easy for me to believe that it is easy for Hashem to help them. So maybe I’ll …
A few days ago I journaled a list of hobbies I would take up if I had the time – some of these are a bit aspirational but that’s the fun of journaling:
A line from a poem in The Mother in Our Lives stayed with me: “Let my heart be my womb.” –from “A Childless Woman’s Song of Transcendence” by Bayla Berger
I enjoyed this essay by Alexandra Fleksher on the issue of materialism in the frum community. It was published Chanukah time but is relevant any time of year.
For a homework assignment in my therapeutic writing training, I had to summarize a study supporting the use of expressive writing for a specific issue. Since I am interested in how to use journaling to deal with burnout in shidduchim, I used an article on workplace burnout as a starting point. The writing protocol in the study required participants to …
I re-read this ol’ post (from my first year of blogging!) and it holds up well. I am looking forward to a peaceful Purim be”H. I’ll be home with my parents in the morning, and then the three of us will go to my sister in Toms River for the afternoon/seudah. Kind of the way I went on my …
Hello, all. I just found this YouTube playlist of Shmuel Kunda story tapes and felt like I came upon a gold mine (Is it legal? Should we keep this between us?). I’ll need to work my way it without delay. First up – When Zaidy Was Young. Hope you enjoy this too!
Recently I went for a short trip to E”Y and it was more restorative and helpful than I could have hoped for. I once heard that when you are desperate for a vacation, that means you needed one long ago, and that is how I felt going into this trip. I had also not been to Eretz Yisroel in …
A reader sent me a question about reaching a milestone (in this case, turning 26 and getting kicked off her parents’ health insurance) and feeling saddened about having to figure out what to do next without a husband to do it with. Practicalities aside, these moments are hard because they highlight the contrast between where you thought you would …
