“Have you ever heard of the forgotten history of the human race? Probably not, being that it’s been forgotten.
Well, I’ll tell you the story the way it was told to me:
A long, long time ago, before any Christs or Buddhas or grocery stores, there lived a group of humans. No one quite agrees on how they came to be, but it was clear they arrived and they wanted to stay alive and became very busy trying to do so.”
My son has lost a lot of people in his life already, and he often asks me to call my mother on my heart-phone so he can talk with her. I do a pretty good imitation of my mother and try to imagine what she’d say. Sometimes it really does feel like I’m channeling her. This is one of those conversations.
(Suitable for all ages.)
A poem for children and families experiencing loss and grief, also available as a hardcover book, Anchors in the Storm.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“My name is Redmond but everyone calls me Mean Red because I’m mean. I heard a couple people whispering about me the other day. They were wondering why I’m so mean. And it got me thinking. I’ve known for a while that I’m good at being mean because I make a lot of kids cry. But I never really thought about how I got this way. So I thought about it and remembered.”
A mean boy tells the story of how he became mean.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“Once there was a mother and a son who were having trouble connecting.
They used to connect all the time. I mean that’s ALL they did. But then little things started getting in their way. And those little things stacked up, like a wall between them. It used to be they would play all day. On the floor with trains or Legos. They’d make up stories that lasted hours, sometimes even days. The mother was tired. But her boy meant everything to her, so when he wanted to connect, she was pretty good at pretending she was wide awake. But then she stopped being good at pretending.”
A story about a mother and her tween son who wanted to connect but had a wall between them.
(Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.)
“Katie McKeever was the new girl in third grade. Katie McKeever was perfect. She didn’t walk, she did back handsprings. She received standing ovation after ovation not only from her peers but from her teachers, some of whom skipped their lunch breaks just to watch her on the balance beam.
It was at that moment I knew I had to be a gymnast. Unfortunately, a gymnast I was not. I took one fall off the balance beam and had to be rushed to the nurse’s office.”
(Suitable for all ages.)
“This is a story about the wickedest witch in all of the land. They didn’t even make a movie about her, that’s how wicked she was. She had so many people in her dungeon, she had to hire a big company to make her a second dungeon. That’s how wicked she was.”
A wicked witch falls from the sky due to a broom malfunction. After landing in a cornfield, she meets a farmer and they wind up helping each other in surprising ways.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“I’ve noticed that a lot of times, people get triggered by each other because they’re coming from different perspectives, but don’t realize it.
When a person sees circumstances from a top floor perspective, life can be understood metaphorically or conceptually or theoretically.
When a person sees circumstances from the ground floor, they’re in survival mode.
And in these moments on the ground floor, a person’s life depends on being able to navigate what’s going on down there and being available to respond. And for good reason. They very well may be fighting for their survival—whether the battle is within or from being traumatized or persecuted by another. Or perhaps their jobs on the ground floor are about saving other people’s lives.”
(Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.)
“Once there was a tiny boy. Well, everything about him was tiny except for the pinky finger on his left hand. By the time this little boy was 4 years old, his pinky finger was the size of his dad.”
A little boy has an extra long pinky and his parents worry it’ll never fit into the world. An allegory for people who may not feel like they fit into society, but how really, there’s plenty space for everyone to be just as they are.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“When unpleasant things happened to me when I was younger, my younger self diligently recorded the details of the event so that if I ever found myself in a situation even remotely similar, she could warn me that something toxic was near.”
(Suitable for teens and adults.)
A story about the burden of carrying around your upsets.
This story is available as a hardcover picture book here.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“Here’s a secret: I have an elevator in my body. Yup. And it takes me wherever I want to go.”
(Suitable for all ages.)
“To me, an intrusive thought is any thought that interrupts what you want to be doing with reasons why you shouldn’t be doing it, reasons that make you feel bad about yourself. Throughout my life, I’ve dealt with a lot of intrusive thoughts, but because of this, I’ve been able to come up with some techniques to reframe them, diffuse their intensity, understand them in new ways, and even turn them into insights. So though I don’t expect what worked for me will work for everyone, I thought I’d share, just in case it’s useful.”
A piece about intrusive thoughts and some ideas for how to reframe them, diffuse their intensity, understand them in new ways, and even turn them into insights.
(Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.)
“Once there was a little girl who loved to count.
’Mama,’ she said one morning. ‘I’m going to count to infinity!’
’But darling,’ her mother replied. ‘There’s no time to count to infinity!’
But the little girl was precocious and wanted to find out for herself.”
The story of a little girl determined to count to infinity.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“To me, one of the hardest things about being a person is figuring out how to get along with other people. It seems like there’s always some problem, some conflict, some battle. It makes sense, though—we’re all walking around at the very same time with our private thoughts and our private wants and needs, our private circumstances and private memories of past circumstances.”
A conversation about shifting one’s perspective so that when other people behave in ways that are toxic to us, we don’t have to internalize the toxicity and have our days be ruined. Instead we can see the situation differently, and through doing so, find empathy for ourselves and maybe even for those most difficult people in our lives.
(Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.)
“Do you ever notice how you feel when someone gives you a zing?
A zing is what I call the feeling I get when someone does something that upsets me. Maybe it’s a harsh tone, maybe someone hasn’t responded to me the way I wished they would have. Or maybe someone’s being plain old-fashioned mean or rude for reasons I can’t understand.”
A conversation about why it’s so easy to get upset by other people, and how we can create more peace in our minds and in our lives by understanding the situation a bit differently.
(Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.)
“One early winter morning, Emily’s mother was driving her to school, when Emily noticed the moon still up in the sky.
’Look at the moon, Mommy!’
’Wow, look at that. What a beautiful moon, honey.’
’I bet it must be cold up there.’
’Oh, I’m sure it is!’
’You think the moon ever gets cold, Mommy?’
’No, dear. The moon doesn’t get cold.’
’How do you know?’
’I just know, darling.’
’But did you ever ask the moon if she gets cold?’
’Yes, I did.’
’Did you really, Mommy?’”
The story of a little girl who wanted to know if the moon was cold, and wouldn’t give up until she found out, even when all the grown-ups insisted her question was ridiculous.
(Suitable for all ages.)
“Once there was a girl who wanted to be a hairdresser. All growing up she would style her hair, her friends’ hair and even her grandmother’s hair.
She had a gift for making people sparkle.
She loved how they looked at themselves in the mirror when she was through, as if their best selves had emerged and were waving hello.”
When a girl becomes flooded by intrusive thoughts, a friend teaches her how to find an anchor.
(Suitable for tweens, teens and adults.)
“Hello. I’m a flower. A beautiful, one-of-a-kind flower. If you saw me, you would have to stop and look. Even if you were running late, you would have to just look for at least a second. You might even want to snap a photo.”
