Category: Love

On Self-Confrontation

One could almost say the heart of reflec­tive lead­er­ship is the capac­i­ty for self-con­fronta­tion. It is not real­ly a skill. It is more a “psy­cho­log­i­cal move,” a men­tal and emo­tion­al re-posi­­tion­ing to look very hon­est­ly at one­self and one’s sit­u­a­tion. With­out it, we have no way to accu­rate­ly judge or respond to sit­u­a­tions, espe­cial­ly when… Con­tin­ue read­ing On Self-Con­fronta­tion

What do I want?

What do I want? That’s almost as pow­er­ful a ques­tion as “Who am I?” For when we don’t express what we want in a true and heart-felt way — first and fore­most to our­selves — we lose a vital part of our joy in being exact­ly who we are. Iron­i­cal­ly, in a soci­ety that over-val­ues indi­vid­u­al­ism,… Con­tin­ue read­ing What do I want?

For My Mother

Jane Hed­wig Stah­mer Oestre­ich 12/5/1911 — 3/5/2012 A mem­o­ry: light sweeps around our love­ly wood­en house and I on stilts tramp my cir­cuit with wood­en feet. I bal­ance each cor­ner’s turn, pass the shad­ows where once the coal was kept, and climb a hill of lilacs toward our sun­lit kitchen. With­in the house you smiled to hear I’d cir­cled… Con­tin­ue read­ing For My Mother

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Categorized as Grief, Love

Mother’s Day

I vis­it­ed my 98-year old moth­er yes­ter­day. She lives in a nurs­ing home and is very well cared for. She has a love­ly room to her­self with pic­tures and books and mem­o­ra­bil­ia to sur­round her. When we arrived she was nap­ping and when she saw it was me she said after a few moments, “Get… Con­tin­ue read­ing Mother’s Day