Category: Personal Evolution
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Me, Too: The Day my Parents Killed the Pedophile
With the #metoo campaign to shed a light on sexual harassment and sexual attack, a lot of survivors are telling their stories. I know it grieves my elderly mom that I talk about it and she wishes she could have done more, but she was victim in a different way…that’s another story. I’ve been telling…
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The Conflict Between Motherhood and Career…Still
We don’t talk about this on Mother’s Day, but there has long been and continues to be–even in these supposedly enlightened and modern times–a conflict between motherhood and career, and there doesn’t have to be. The conflict is almost always because of someone else’s judgment of how we should be as mothers or how we…
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Making Peace When You’ve Done No Wrong
She is an elder in my spiritual community, and every now and then, she looks right through me and tells me things I need to hear, whether I want to hear them or not. A few months ago, she sent me a message saying, “Lorna, you need to make peace. Even if you’re not the…
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Choosing between Professional Goals and Personal Goals
The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book of business advice for millennials, How to Be a Badass Cubicle Dweller. And bam! Just like that, I laid to rest the professional goal I’d been running after for over 25 years—Senior Executive Service within the Department of Defense. Literally overnight after meeting with my…
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Gossip: How Christians Can Go to Hell
“I would never say that,” I murmured, voice trembling, to the other girl’s teacher. The woman bent down, peering into my face. If she’d been my homeroom teacher or if I’d ever had a class with her, she would have known me, would’ve known that I tended to be the teacher’s pet, without even intending…
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Why the Bullying Pattern in My Life Re-Surfaced
Why? I kept asking. Why, why, why? Though in the beginning, the question wasn’t Why? but Who? I was trusting the wrong person, taking his word for everything because of his position, and because I really–really–did want to like him. Instead, I was repeating a pattern I’ve seen a number of times in my…
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Anti-Bullying: Why I Dyed My Hair Purple
I dyed my hair purple last week. Professional salon job. It was time for a cut and color, long past because I can almost never schedule two afternoon hours off from work during the week and I’ve had silver in my hair since I was 18. My inability to get to the salon before my…
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What Would You Do with a Second Chance?
What would you do with a second chance? Would you squander it? Would you change your life? Would you promise to start over and then lapse back into old habits? We think, most often, of second chances in life as being related to health or even near-death experiences, but they can just as easily be…
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When I Don’t Know How to Have a Champion
In my whole life, I’ve had about as many champions as I can count on one hand. The women who have stood up for me over the long-term have been more second mothers than champions, and the intent was different: to nurture more so than to protect. Still, I don’t really count them as champions. …
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Overshoot Your Goals. Always.
According to the Norman Vincent Peale quote, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” The point is, if you have goals, you stand a chance of getting farther in life and reaching your dreams. Once you go farther than you ever dreamed, the smaller goals and dreams are so…