If you want to find happiness, find gratitude. —Steve Maraboli This past month I’ve spent three afternoons at two city libraries teaching children to write gratitude letters. We’ve used lots of paper as we’ve mind-mapped gratitude. Between all three sessions, the children have written almost 50 thank you cards. It’s such great fun to watch...Read More

A few years ago, a bookseller at Boswell Book Company told me about The Fruit Bowl Project: 50 ways to tell a story by Sarah Durkee. In this novel, rock superstar Nick Thompson visits an eighth-grade writing class to talk about writing. Here’s what Nick tells the class about writing: My theory is that for...Read More

Not easy to find the balance, for if one does not have wild dreams of achievement, there is no spur even to get the dishes washed. One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being. —May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude It’s time to record your visions, dreams, and goals...Read More

I’m a big fan of the book, Thanks: How Practicing Gratitude Can Make You Happier by Robert A. Emmons. Professor Emmons and his colleague Professor Mike McCullough have conducted many gratitude studies. They first looked at the effects of gratitude journaling. All of the participants kept a journal and were asked to write a sentence...Read More

Last week on Facebook, someone shared a blog post from Marc and Angel Hack Life titled, 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself. While I agreed with much of the post, I was not crazy about #11: Stop being idle. As I read Marc and Angel’s explanation—it seems that what they really want the reader...Read More

The more you write, the more you write. —Rochelle Melander An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. —Isaac Newton Here’s what I’ve noticed about exercise. The more I walk, run, lift weights...Read More

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. —Norbet Platt Journaling can offer us the space we need to reflect on our lives and our writing. I have frequently used dialogue to explore challenging feelings or...Read More

Practice Makes Perfect: How journaling helps the writing process Guest Post by Debra Brenegan One requirement I have for students of my Introduction to Creative Writing Courses: Keep a journal. My students need to write a minimum of two full pages a week for the 15 weeks we are in class together. What do they...Read More

My 9th grade English teacher loved the word garage. I didn’t get it. For me, the word garage conjured up images of oil spots and old tools. She kept saying, “Listen to the sound, to how the word rolls off your tongue: garage.” This morning as I walked the dog, her words came back to...Read More

It’s too hard. I’m not strong enough. I don’t have time. I throw these kinds of mental obstacles in my path all the time. I hear clients uttering these phrases, too. These words may not be true, but they do work to undermine us. Time to spring clean our brains. Make a list of the...Read More