A friend recently sent me an article about “glimmers” which are the opposite of “triggers.” Triggers activate our fight/flight/freeze responses, but glimmers activate our sense of safety and connection. This is a concept from Deb Dana, LCSW, who is an expert in polyvagal theory, an approach to understanding and healing trauma. Glimmers are found in small moments and reminders of …
I read a beautiful idea in Mary Pipher’s book Women Rowing North. When you are struggling with sadness or loneliness or hopelessness about the future, look around you for evidence of love in the world. I find amazing evidence of love all that time through my job. I work with people dealing with serious illness, and I hear stories about “ordinary” …
Nostalgia mode still going strong, maybe it’s the time of year. Below is another list of things that used to absolutely delight me as a child (and here is a list of ordinary things that still do). More pressing, though — what’s on yours?
I have a file that I add to anytime I come across an interesting article, website, person, etc that relates to one of the topics I may write about. Of course I have many references to shidduchim/singlehood. Recently I came across an amazing study which was also written about in this op-ed:
Recently I finished another course in my therapeutic writing training, and I found the exercises to be particularly deep and moving. For one of the exercises we had to make a list of intersections in our lives, moments when we chose to go in one direction and not another. Then we explored one of those intersections more in depth and …
A couple weeks ago someone sent me a resume (and picture) and asked what I thought of the idea for me. It always makes me feel a little bad and sad to say no (but I do it). I looked at the picture and I thought how painful it is that innocent people need to be judged all the time …
I would like to create an art installation made entirely of shidduch resumes. A huge room lined wall to wall and floor to ceiling with shidduch resumes framed in gold. A juxtaposition of the casualness with which we treat the resume against the deference it truly deserves. No talking in the gallery, please. Silent respect.
Have you ever read A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’engle? It was one of my favorite books growing up. But one thing in particular struck me when I picked it up recently. Mrs. Murry, mother of Meg, the twins, and Charles Wallace, is a microbiologist. She has two doctorates, in biology and bacteriology. And she is called “Mrs.”! It’s …
Shidduchim requires us to hold an amazing paradox: there is so much we can do — an endless number of things — and there is nothing we can do. The Brisker Rav famously said that hishtadlus in shidduchim is unnecessary, and it is permitted for our nerves. There will always be more hishtadlus we can think of, yet we know …
My roommate once made such a wise observation. She said that sometimes, a yeshua we need comes like a bolt out of nowhere. And other times, we look back at the road we have travelled and realized the yeshua has been unfolding all along. I was an eighth grade yearbook editor and the theme we chose was “Journeys.” Our …
