It seems too obvious to be reminded, but in order to move forward, to change, we must let go of what we were to become what will enable the change we desire to materialize. I have shared the analogy in the past of swinging on monkey bars as a kid – in order to grab […]
~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #175 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio “How you eat, when you eat, for how long you eat, and with whom you eat might be more important than what you eat. Eating and enjoying real food is what matters, not tracking calories.” —Johnny Adamic As reported by Time magazine last year, while the United States […]
~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #154 ~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate: iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” —Nelson Mandela Amelia Earhart, at the age of 23, had a dream awoken within her that she could not explain. Filled with both fear and pleasure, she “knew she had to fly”. Julia Child was determined to […]
“Someone once told me not to be afraid of being afraid, because, she said, ‘Anxiety is a glimpse of your own daring.’ Isn’t that great? It means part of your agitation is just excitement about what you’re getting ready to accomplish. And whatever you’re afraid of – that is the very thing you should […]
“Resilent people are really good at choosing carefully where they select their attention . . . and make an intentional, deliberate, ongoing effort to tune into what’s good in [their] world.” —Lucy Hone, psychologist and grief expert Each of us grasps life lessons at our own pace. Whether due to our own motivation to grow […]
Books for relaxing, for being inspired, for being informed, for sweeping you away to Paris, for helping you find your purpose and calling, a new series to sweep you back to an unknown story which took place during WWII, a film to reveal something you may not have known, cottage gardeners, a series for you […]
Emerging into a new season after having for so long been limited by what activities have been offered to change our attire and express ourselves sartorially is a descriptor many clothing brands have posted on their homepage to welcome online shoppers into their stores. After all, each in our own way, we are ready for […]
“Life begins with breath, breath carries you through your days, and life and breath end together . . . We measure our lives not by how big or small our impact is, but by how we make people feel. We use our time to establish how we will live on, through giving love and care, […]
Spring clothing items to brighten your wardrobe, a cookbook full of non-recipes, France is found in a variety of places – television, books, cookbooks and more, the documentary many people have been eager to watch, and still so much more. Books —28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand Released last summer to tens of thousands of positive […]
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“Living your purpose will make it possible to do all the things you need to do to reach the goals you need to reach in order to fulfill your dreams, which are as big as the world and as optimistic as your mind can imagine.” —Norma Kamali, author of I Am Invincible Change is inevitable, […]
The pace of our everyday lives slowed unimaginably and unexpectedly nearly a year ago, but for many of us our minds have kept their ferocious pace. Almost as if the mind was the conveyer belt of chocolates in the now iconic I Love Lucy episode continuing at robotic pace unconcerned with the response to the […]
Over the weekend I quietly celebrated my 42nd birthday. It was lovely. It was full of much contemplation. It included delicious food and wine and the last day of the year brought the sunshine which found me out in my garden preparing for spring. Over the past 12 months all of our lives experienced unexpected […]
Effortless. Nonchalant. Often, when an outsider observing the Parisian, or more largely the French citizen, the descriptor of effortlessness seems to aptly convey the mannerism, approach and presentation. All of this is to say, we are intrigued at such a seemingly unattainable way of living because, well, there must be a secret only the French […]
“People can change and be happy from this moment onward . . . the problem is not one of ability, but of courage.” —from the book The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga “As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.” American folk singer Joan Baez certainly narrows down succinctly […]
For now twenty years I have been teaching English composition and literature and specifically rhetoric for 10 of the 20. As was taught to me by a professor of rhetorical far wiser than I, my students regularly hear me or see written on their essays a comment striking out pronouns, and quite frequently the demonstrative […]
“Let go of thinking and rest the mind in awareness. That is when we discover peace of mind.” —Andy Puddicombe Positive thinking is powerful, but forcing positivity can be exhausting as it ignores what is. Negativity and cynism is destructive and life depleting, and to walk through life with a jaded perspective closes our lives […]
“This [recession, an economic hard time] is the time you invest in the future. It’s in tough times that you build to bring you to a better future.” — Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize winning architecture critic (talking about Penn Station’s reveal in 2021) The national parks preserved throughout the United States, the Social Security system, […]
New French cuisine cookbooks, inspiration for paring down and amping up the quality of your life, fitness and health inspired books, a new series to take you into the growing of Floret’s Flowers, Frankie Drake returns, learn to let go of the burnout and embrace the goodness of living well, and oh, so much more. […]
“Discontent is the first necessity of progress.” – Thomas Edison True contentment runs like a river feeding our everyday lives with constant inner peace. Whether the weather for the day is a turbulent snow storm or a sunny Blue Bird day as we call them in Bend, the river of True Contentment continues to run […]
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“Your inner purpose is to awaken.” —Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth To observe the seamless fluidity of a dancing pair with years of professional dancing experience float across the floor no matter what type of dance is asked of them is to observe a deep awareness and skill of their craft. Foxtrot. No problem. […]
“We are born with a capacity to dance together but not with the necessary training.” —David Richo As soon as I read the first line in chapter one shown above, the analogy made crystal clear sense of my ignorance about relationships and how to navigate past it: I needed to learn HOW to love, not […]
“Comparison is the death of joy.” ― Mark Twain The thief of joy, if Mark Twain is right, is of our own making. The good news in this revelation reveals each of us can take back our joy. Comparing ourselves to others occurs consciously and unconsciously. Consciously, we may be acutely aware that we follow certain […]
