This listing serves as an annotated table of contents for the Monthly Musing Archives. You can also find your way to any Archive page via the links at the bottom of the Monthly Musing page or the bottom of any Archive page.
Too Much (7/99) - not shaving off parts of ourselves to become the person we think that others will like or accept.
Stuck (9/99) - learning to lovingly, patiently and compassionately witness the old patterns we are repeating when we are not yet able to change them.
75 mph (11/99) - learning to recognize and acknowledge even the smallest steps in our own growing process.
Feelings (12/99) - giving ourselves safe, open and accepting space for feeling all of our feelings.
Sacred Rest (1/00) - opening to and valuing the magic and wonders of non-doing, empty time/space in which to nourish our body, mind and spirit.
Response (2/00) - turning our well enculturated sensitivities and sense of responsibility for the care taking of others toward our very own selves.
Judging Difference (3/00) - becoming more spacious and generous with ourselves and others around differences; learning that difference need not be directional (e.g., good/bad, more than/less than).
Doing Better (4/00) - accepting that we are always doing the best we can with the consciousness available in this moment; celebrating the baby steps along the way of our unfolding.
Not Safe (5/00) - valuing our inner timetables enough not to move forward with anything (however inviting) for which we don't yet feel ready or safe enough.
Covers (6/00) - discovering the richness, comfort and nourishment in surrendering into feeling sorry for ourselves and pulling the covers up over our heads.
Safe To Scream (8/00) - learning to accept that angry feelings are an acceptable part of being human and finding safe ways to release them.
Feeling Frightened (9/00) - becoming more gentle, loving and generous with our frightened selves, especially when it appears "there's nothing to be afraid of."
Cycles (10/00) - reclaiming the natural cycles of ebb and flow, coming together and coming apart, expansiveness and withdrawal in our everyday lives.
Loving Acceptance (12/00) - coming to understanding that the loving acceptance we so desperately seek from others can come only from our very own selves.
Accept Who You Are (1/01) - discovering that as we come to value our own ways of being, no one else has much trouble with these ways.
"Procrastinating" (2/01) - recognizing that what looks like "procrastination" (to outside eyes) is usually a sign that either we're asking ourselves to do something that's not right for us to do at all, or not right for us to do at this moment.
Growth Is A Process (4/01) - becoming more generous with the pace of our unfolding as we come to understand that growth is an ever-ongoing process, not an achievement or a reaching of Nirvana.
"Belly" Feelings (5/01) - understanding the importance of listening to our body and belly (gut) feelings, recognizing these as messages from our inner being's direct knowing.
Others' Views (7/01) - recognizing the importance of listening to our own inner knowing place, even in the darkest times: a story of enmeshment and emergence from an emotionally abusive relationship.
Criticizing Yourself (8/01) - learning how to cope with and to heal the harsh inner critical voices; understanding how they've come to be so powerful.
Applaud Yourself (9/01) - honoring how much more richly we grow and flourish as we practice being kinder, gentler, more acknowledging and celebrating of ourselves.
Be With Yourself (10/01) - valuing the riches and rewards of learning how to enjoy being with your very own self.
Measuring Yourself (11/01) - learning not to measure ourselves against what others are doing or what the culture prescribes; coming to trust that our own process of unfolding is the right one for us.
Owning Your Fears (12/01) - claiming our right to our own fears: listening to them, taking them seriously, honoring them and taking good care of ourselves in the middle of them.
Love Yourself Now (1/02) - developing the practice of loving, cherishing, acknowledging and honoring ourselves just exactly as we are right now.
Forgiving Before It's Time (2/02) - finding permission not to push ourselves into forgiving those who have abused or wounded us when such forgiving feels like it re-violates our tender, wounded selves.
The Power of Vulnerability (3/02) - claiming and honoring our vulnerable, emotionally responsive, relational natures even as the patriarchal white male paradigm encourages us to devalue and disown these sources of our deepest empowerment.
The Vulnerability of Power (4/02) - practicing to hold ourselves safely in the face of resentful responses to our acting from our empowered fullness in a world in which power is typically perceived as power-over, as limited in availability.
Reclaiming Rest (5/02) - reclaiming rest as an urgent, meaningful, honorable, significant, enormously productive choice to create time/space for the richness of our inner lives to blossom.
Feeling Sad or In Grief (6/02) - honoring our right to claim all the time and space we need to make it safe to feel our "dark" feelings, to uncover the knowings, wisdom and truths in their depths.
Feeling Unsafe or Uneasy (7/02) - practicing becoming a consistent and fierce protector for our vulnerable selves, trusting that we must act from what is so for us in the moment, not from what is supposedly "really so."
Mistakes As Opportunities (8/02) - claiming mistakes as a normal, unavoidable part of the process of life that can offer us opportunities both to see more deeply into and to grow ourselves.
Surrendering (9/02) - honoring the active, empowered and empowering process of giving up the struggle of resisting "what is so" without forcing ourselves to give up our feelings about "what is so."
Fallow Seasons (10/02) - valuing the extraordinarily empowering and profoundly healing richness of intentional or serendipitous periods of empty, still fallow time.
Giving That Depletes (11/02) - finding permission to give to our own selves the exquisite devotional caring we all too often give away to others (who also need to learn to give this kind of caring to their own selves).
Loving Yourself (12/02) - accepting that the dismantling of self-hatred is always an inside job and then devoting ourselves to a daily practice of compassionately, unconditionally and fiercely re-mothering ourselves.
Too Much Work (1/03) - recognizing when something we're engaged in is no longer (or not) nourishing or enlivening to us; finding permission to stop or not to start engaging in these processes that feel like "too much work."
Not Berating Yourself (2/03) - opening our hearts to embrace our less than perfect selves with generosity and compassion, knowing that this is what will grow us, open us to deeper knowing and help us to heal our woundedness.
Feeling Confused (3/03) - reminding our confused/doubting selves to stop doing, thinking, talking, figuring; remembering, instead, to take breaks, to make time to be still, to listen inward for the knowings in our belly-feelings.
Speak Kindly to Yourself (4/03) -committing ourselves to the practice of speaking kindly and lovingly to ourselves; trusting that change and growth flow more readily from tender nurture than from "drill sergeant" criticism.
Judging Someone (5/03) - recognizing that what we judge in someone else is most often something we have disowned in ourselves; using such times as opportunities to acknowledge/embrace those disowned parts of ourself.
When You're Tired, Rest (6/03) - claiming the right to allow ourselves to rest whenever we feel tired–regardless of whether we or anyone else believe either that there's "no reason to be tired" or that there's "no time for rest."
Making Room for Feelings (7/03) - committing ourselves to making room to safely feel all of our feelings, no matter how "extreme, unreasonable, immature, not like ourselves" we or others may think they are.
Letting Go of Goals (8/03) - framing more broad open-ended "intentions" (instead of specific goals, affirmations, visualizations) as a way of honoring that we may not yet know what's really right for the "who-we-are-becoming."
Going More Slowly (9/03) - giving ourselves permission to move more slowly, care-fully and cautiously when we feel scared or anxious so that we may honor, protect and gently encourage our fearful selves.
When Change is Moving Quickly (10/03) - focusing on the "thinnest slice of now" to keep our currently unprepared selves from feeling overwhelmed by visions of the changes that the who-we-are-becoming will be ready to meet.
Being Exactly Where You Are (11/03) - giving ourselves permission to be just where we are while we're there so that we can be fully present to these trying, challenging, difficult times and can learn what we need to from them.
Being Different (12/03) - understanding and embracing our differentness as something valuable, honorable and empowering about our selves in a world which presses always to make us be just like everyone else.
Not-Knowing Times (2/04) - acknowledging not-knowing times as important, empowering parts of the cycle of growing; holding ourselves gently and compassionately during these sometimes disquieting seasons.
Comforting Ourselves (3/04) - recognizing that it is most often our own comforting for which we are yearning; then giving ourselves permission to apply our exquisitely honed nurturing skills to our very own wounded selves.
Celebrating Yourself (4/04) - honoring the courage it takes to risk living in the middle of our healing journey–learning to love, accept, know and enjoy our inmost selves–in a world that does not support or value this choice.
When Others Are Criticizing You (5/04) - understanding that as we practice becoming fiercely protective, unconditionally loving mothers to ourselves, our view of ourselves becomes more independent of others' opinions of us.
Our Slowest Parts (6/04) - choosing to listen to the quieter voice deep within that asks for us to go only as fast as the slowest part of us feels safe to go– so that we may be more gentle and cherishing of our tender selves.
Not "Pushing Through" Fears (7/04) - honoring the vulnerable parts of our selves by committing to listening to, comforting and providing for them whatever they need in order feel safe to move forward when they're fearful.
Angry Feelings (8/04) - recognizing that angry, nasty, mean-spirited feelings are signals that something "not good for us" is going on–listening inward to discover what that something might be and what we need to do about it.
Being Gentle With Yourself (9/04) - choosing to become curious witness-observers exploring the intricacies of our own ways of being, feeling and doing allows us to become more gentle and generous toward ourselves.
Beginnings and Endings (11/04) - acknowledging that beginnings inevitably involve endings, we come to understand, to honor and to embrace the intertwinnings of grief and joy that we experience at such thresholds.
Feeling Not Ready (12/04) - giving ourselves permission to let opportunities pass when their timing feels wrong for us, knowing that Spirit will continue to send us more/ better opportunities until one that feels just right shows up.
Not Rushing (2/05) - staying with ourselves in the middle of–rather than rushing way from–really difficult emotional processes, we dare to feel, release and organically come out the far side of those processes.
Too Much (Revised 3/05) - not shaving off parts of ourselves to become the person we think that others will like or accept.
Stuck (Revised 5/05) - learning to lovingly, patiently and compassionately witness the old patterns we are repeating when we are not yet able to change them.
75 mph (Revised 6/05) - learning to recognize and acknowledge even the smallest steps in our own growing process.
Feelings (Revised 7/05) - giving ourselves safe, open and accepting space for feeling all of our feelings.
Sacred Rest (Revised 8/05) - opening to and valuing the magic and wonders of non-doing, empty time/space in which to nourish our body, mind and spirit.
Response (Revised 9/05) - turning our well enculturated sensitivities and sense of responsibility for the care taking of others toward our very own selves.
Judging Difference (Revised 10/05) - becoming more spacious and generous with ourselves and others around differences; learning that difference need not be directional (e.g., good/bad, more than/less than).
Doing Better (Revised 11/05) - accepting that we are always doing the best we can with the consciousness available in this moment; celebrating the baby steps along the way of our unfolding.
Not Safe (Revised 12/05) - valuing our inner timetables enough not to move forward with anything (however inviting) for which we don't yet feel ready or safe enough.
Covers (Revised 1/06) - discovering the richness, comfort and nourishment in surrendering into feeling sorry for ourselves and pulling the covers up over our heads.
Safe To Scream (Revised 2/06) - learning to accept that angry feelings are an acceptable part of being human and finding safe ways to release them.
Feeling Frightened (Revised 3/06) - becoming more gentle, loving and generous with our frightened selves, especially when it appears "there's nothing to be afraid of."
Cycles (Revised 4/06) - reclaiming the natural cycles of ebb and flow, coming together and coming apart, expansiveness and withdrawal in our everyday lives.
Loving Acceptance (Revised 5/06) - coming to understanding that the loving acceptance we so desperately seek from others can come only from our very own selves.
Accept Who You Are (Revised 6/06) - discovering that as we come to value our own ways of being, no one else has much trouble with these ways.
"Procrastinating" (Revised 8/06) - recognizing that what looks like "procrastination" (to outside eyes) is usually a sign that either we're asking ourselves to do something that's not right for us to do at all, or not right for us to do at this moment.
Growth Is A Process (Revised 9/06) - becoming more generous with the pace of our unfolding as we come to understand that growth is an ever-ongoing process, not an achievement or a reaching of Nirvana.
"Belly" Feelings (Revised 10/06) - understanding the importance of listening to our body and belly (gut) feelings, recognizing these as messages from our inner being's direct knowing.
Others' Views (Revised 12/06) - recognizing the importance of listening to our own inner knowing place, even in the darkest times: a story of enmeshment and emergence from an emotionally abusive relationship.
Criticizing Yourself (Revised 1/07) - learning how to cope with and to heal the harsh inner critical voices; understanding how they've come to be so powerful.
Be With Yourself (Revised 3/07) - valuing the riches and rewards of learning how to enjoy being with your very own self.
Measuring Yourself (Revised 5/07) - learning not to measure ourselves against what others are doing or what the culture prescribes; coming to trust that our own process of unfolding is the right one for us.
Owning Your Fears (Revised 7/07) - claiming our right to our own fears: listening to them, taking them seriously, honoring them and taking good care of ourselves in the middle of them.
Love Yourself Now (Revised 8/07)) - developing the practice of loving, cherishing, acknowledging and honoring ourselves just exactly as we are right now.
Forgiving Before It's Time (Revised 10/07) - finding permission not to push ourselves into forgiving those who have abused or wounded us when such forgiving feels like it re-violates our tender, wounded selves.
The Power of Vulnerability (Revised 11/07) - claiming and honoring our vulnerable, emotionally responsive, relational natures even as the patriarchal white male paradigm encourages us to devalue and disown these sources of our deepest empowerment.
The Power of Vulnerability (Revised 12/07) - claiming and honoring our vulnerable, emotionally responsive, relational natures even as the patriarchal white male paradigm encourages us to devalue and disown these sources of our deepest empowerment.
Reclaiming Rest (Revised 1/08) - reclaiming rest as an urgent, meaningful, honorable, significant, enormously productive choice to create time/space for the richness of our inner lives to blossom.
Feeling Sad or In Grief (Revised 3/08) - honoring our right to claim all the time and space we need to make it safe to feel our "dark" feelings, to uncover the knowings, wisdom and truths in their depths.
Feeling Unsafe or Uneasy (Revised 4/08) - practicing becoming a consistent and fierce protector for our vulnerable selves, trusting that we must act from what is so for us in the moment, not from what is supposedly "really so."
Mistakes As Opportunities (Revised 6/08) - claiming mistakes as a normal, unavoidable part of the process of life that can offer us opportunities both to see more deeply into and to grow ourselves.
Surrendering (Revised 7/08) - honoring the active, empowered and empowering process of giving up the struggle of resisting "what is so" without forcing ourselves to give up our feelings about "what is so."
Fallow Seasons (Revised 8/08) - valuing the extraordinarily empowering and profoundly healing richness of intentional or serendipitous periods of empty, still fallow time.
Giving That Depletes (Revised 9/08) - finding permission to give to our own selves the exquisite devotional caring we all too often give away to others (who also need to learn to give this kind of caring to their own selves).
Feeling Not Ready (12/04) - giving ourselves permission to let opportunities pass when their timing feels wrong for us, knowing that Spirit will continue to send us more/ better opportunities until one that feels just right shows up.
Loving Yourself (Revised 10/08) - accepting that the dismantling of self-hatred is always an inside job and then devoting ourselves to a daily practice of compassionately, unconditionally and fiercely re-mothering ourselves.
Too Much Work (Revised 11/08) - recognizing when something we're engaged in is no longer (or not) nourishing or enlivening to us; finding permission to stop or not to start engaging in these processes that feel like "too much work."
Not Berating Yourself (Revised 12/08) - opening our hearts to embrace our less than perfect selves with generosity and compassion, knowing that this is what will grow us, open us to deeper knowing and help us to heal our woundedness.
Feeling Confused (Revised 1/09) - reminding our confused/doubting selves to stop doing, thinking, talking, figuring; remembering, instead, to take breaks, to make time to be still, to listen inward for the knowings in our belly- feelings.
Speak Kindly to Yourself (Revised 2/09) - committing ourselves to the practice of speaking kindly and lovingly to ourselves; trusting that change and growth flow more readily from tender nurture than from "drill sergeant" criticism.
Judging Someone (Revised 3/09) - recognizing that what we judge in someone else is most often something we have disowned in ourselves; using such times as opportunities to acknowledge/embrace those disowned parts of ourself.
When You're Tired, Rest (Revised 4/09) - claiming the right to allow ourselves to rest whenever we feel tired–regardless of whether we or anyone else believe either that there's "no reason to be tired" or that there's "no time for rest."
Making Room for Feelings (Revised 6/09) - committing ourselves to making room to safely feel all of our feelings, no matter how "extreme, unreasonable, immature, not like ourselves" we or others may think they are.
Letting Go of Goals (Revised 7/09) - framing more broad open-ended "intentions" (instead of specific goals, affirmations, visualizations) as a way of honoring that we may not yet know what's really right for the "who-we-are-becoming."
Going More Slowly (Revised 8/09) - giving ourselves permission to move more slowly, care-fully and cautiously when we feel scared or anxious so that we may honor, protect and gently encourage our fearful selves.
When Change is Moving Quickly (Revised 9/09) - focusing on the thinnest-slice-of-now to keep our currently unprepared selves from feeling overwhelmed by visions of the changes that the who-we-are-becoming will be ready to meet.
Being Exactly Where You Are (Revised 10/09) - giving ourselves permission to be just where we are while we're there so that we can be fully present to these trying, challenging, difficult times and can learn what we need to from them.
Being Different (Revised 11/09) - understanding and embracing our differentness as something valuable, honorable and empowering about our selves in a world which presses always to make us be just like everyone else.
Not-Knowing Times (Revised 12/09) - acknowledging not-knowing times as important, empowering parts of the cycle of growing; holding ourselves gently and compassionately during these sometimes disquieting seasons.
Comforting Ourselves (Revised 1/10) - recognizing that it is most often our own comforting for which we are yearning; then giving ourselves permission to apply our exquisitely honed nurturing skills to our very own wounded selves.
Applaud Yourself (Revised 2/10) - honoring how much more richly we grow and flourish as we practice being kinder, gentler, more acknowledging and celebrating of ourselves.
When Others Are Criticizing You (Revised 4/10) - understanding that as we practice becoming fiercely protective, unconditionally loving mothers to ourselves, our view of ourselves becomes more independent of others' opinions of us.
Our Slowest Parts (Revised 6/10) - choosing to listen to the quieter voice deep within that asks for us to go only as fast as the slowest part of us feels safe to go– so that we may be more gentle and cherishing of our tender selves.
Not "Pushing Through" Fears (Revised 7/10) - honoring the vulnerable parts of our selves by committing to listening to, comforting and providing for them whatever they need in order feel safe to move forward when they're fearful.
Angry Feelings (Revised 8/10) - recognizing that angry, nasty, mean-spirited feelings are signals that something "not good for us" is going on–listening inward to discover what that something might be and what we need to do about it.
Being Gentle With Yourself (Revised 9/10) - choosing to become curious witness-observers exploring the intricacies of our own ways of being, feeling and doing allows us to become more gentle and generous toward ourselves.
Beginnings and Endings (Revised 10/10) - acknowledging that beginnings inevitably involve endings, we come to understand, to honor and to embrace the intertwinnings of grief and joy that we experience at such thresholds.
Feeling Not Ready (Revised 12/10) - giving ourselves permission to let opportunities pass when their timing feels wrong for us, knowing that Spirit will continue to send us more/ better opportunities until one that feels just right shows up.
Not Rushing (Revised 1/11) - staying with ourselves in the middle of–rather than rushing way from–really difficult emotional processes, we dare to feel, release and organically come out the far side of those processes.
Too Much (Revised 2/11) - not shaving off parts of ourselves to become the person we think that others will like or accept.
Stuck (Revised 4/11) - learning to lovingly, patiently and compassionately witness the old patterns we are repeating when we are not yet able to change them.
75 mph (Revised 5/11) - learning to recognize and acknowledge even the smallest steps in our own growing process.
Feelings (Revised 6/11) - giving ourselves safe, open and accepting space for feeling all of our feelings.
Sacred Rest (Revised 8/11) - opening to and valuing the magic and wonders of non-doing, empty time/space in which to nourish our body, mind and spirit.
Response (Revised 9/11) - turning our well enculturated sensitivities and sense of responsibility for the care taking of others toward our very own selves.
Judging Difference (Revised 11/11) - becoming more spacious and generous with ourselves and others around differences; learning that difference need not be directional (e.g., good/bad, more than/less than).
Doing Better (Revised 12/11) - accepting that we are always doing the best we can with the consciousness available in this moment; celebrating the baby steps along the way of our unfolding.
