Dear friends, thank you for thinking of me. I am ok and read your posts often. My hand is in pain, and I get another injection tomorrow – every 3 months – so makes the keyboard a challenge. I need surgery, but delaying for as long as possible. Every day, I am grateful to read of you and your lives of hope and trust in the steps you take toward your life’s purpose and words of gratefulness.

I have been reading, some books recommended here (thank you!) as I try to make sense of my life a year into retirement. I struggle with “what is my life purpose” and answers do not come. But some of the reading does inspire me, so thank you. I really appreciated the old book by Dale Carnegie “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.” If you have some recommendations in this regard – life purpose – I would be glad.

I am otherwise making it through winter in some ways, participating in family, and have purchased a balance yoga dvd to help me, as my balance is not what it used to be. And I cook almost every day as a way of self-care. I am lazy and clumsy with this, especially with my one hand, but I am trying. I support you when I don’t write, cheer you on in your projects and efforts, picture your joyful scenes out the window and in the forest, and am just very, very grateful. In addition to family, you are “my people.” Namaste.

A few years ago I was very sick and my weight bordered on dangerously low. It took far too long to diagnose correctly, until a very fine doctor – who listened, attended closely to the labs, and asked all the right questions – figured it out. I am more than grateful to her, her gifts and training that helped to bring about this awareness. They also provided nutrition counseling and therapy as I began treatment and my lifelong eating regimen. I have just recently reached normal weight. I am grateful to those that continue to research and develop/grow healthy and organic foods that I can eat. I am grateful to restaurants, few though they are in my area, that can work with the limitations, who don’t buy their food already made from another source, and markets that carry real foods. I am ever grateful to my family and friends who have supported me in this often tenuous, sometimes frightening, journey back to relative health.

Dear Aine, I cannot thank you enough for this wise, thoughtful and supportive post. You seem to know me quite well! I have put Buechner’s books on my reading list, and ordered Michael Singer’s from the library. I will also look for the Peg Bracken books.

I have not tried acupuncture. I will see if I can find a practitioner somewhere near me. I don’t live especially near a wide variety of “alternative” practitioners, but do believe in many of their practices. Avoiding surgery would be wonderful.

You seem to know me well, friend. There have been many stresses, especially physical. I have eaten a special and limited diet for several years now, after a dangerous weight loss and long undiagnosed situation. I take it in stride now, and have reached, finally, a normal weight.

I love your beautiful image of the tea leaf flowers, and will copy it down. Trusting the process has never been my strong suit. And I AM still finding my way out of the exhausted state that finally encouraged my decision to retire. It was as if I was completely numb at that point, and the effort was putting one foot in front of the other each day.

May your own journey of self-compassion continue to bring you the deep wisdom and self-compassion you show to others, my friend. Thank you.

Aine, I have a wise friend who has studied and knows much about dreams. She has told me that I am all the people in my dreams. This has given me much to ponder in the past. Another friend, a spiritual director, quotes St. Ignatius as saying “clarity is the root of discernment.” You have pondered and discerned much, and do have clarity (in your waking hours) that you are ready to go. Unfortunately, selling a house in winter is not always easiest, though usually only serious buyers are looking. The market will heat up in spring. (As I recall, you live in the Midwest USA.) Trust, if you can, that when you have put your needs and truth out into the Universe, at the right moment, movement will come. I pray with you in this in-between time, my friend.

Nancy and THenry, I have found these same connections on Gratefulness.org. You are often the company at my table as I have my morning coffee. I read this yesterday, and thought to post it here in response:
“Though we speak different languages, we all see the same wonder, feel the same agony; though we all sing and cry in different voices … as water smooths stone and enters sand, we become each other. What I’ve always thought sets me apart, binds me to others.” Mark Nepo in The Exquisite Risk

Dear Ose, it sounds as if you are doing some deep and holy work within yourself, a process that may seem to take a lot of time. You are noticing and honoring the small movements of hope and healing, which can so often come slowly (in human time). Our wounds, they are a lovely part of us, no? They hold what is true in our experiences, and to bless them for the information given and invitations to heal, maybe this is one of the great invitations of our pilgrimage. As we heal, and it is not easy and can first uproot even more pain in memory, perhaps one tear of our universe heals, as well. It seems you have entered into the depths of this invitation. Know that we are with you, holding you to the light, my dear friend from my first pilgrimage on this site. I bow before you and thank you for your brave words and work.

Erich, you have been through a lot, and you show significant awareness of what gives you anxiety and also blessing. So much feels tenuous to you, especially because of your very real experiences. May you find your way in this as well as possible, through that which is life-giving to you, even through what may feel like the smallest thing in your practice of gratitude. I just checked out a library book by Dale Carnegie called “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” so you are not alone in knowing anxiety. I feel your wish to be grateful for and enjoy what feels good. And safe. May you be well, friend, as you navigate this time. Thank you for your willingness to share your heart here.

Hi Sylvie, I checked out a book about hygge from the library, as so many people were talking about it. I would say that, in a word, it means cozy. It is a way of life for some countries, and includes things like gathering with friends, good food on the table, fire in the fireplace, candles, blankets, sweaters and warm clothes to go outside, maybe playing board games or other simple things when gathered. It doesn’t seem to include the attachment to electronic entertainment that has a grip on a lot of the world.