Kerri On Down The Road

"It's the most wonderful time of the year".  Inevitably at some point each December, I will be in a shop or public place when this song starts to play in the background.  And as the song plays on I take a look around me at the faces of the people nearby.  Oftentimes not many seem to be in agreement with this sentiment.   No matter what we decide about dialing back our holiday engagements, spending or indulging, it seems like each year we arrive in the same place feeling the same way -- overextended; stressed; anxious.  In a nutshell, just looking forward to it being over.  Why does this happen year after year and is there something that we can do to flip the script? With all that has transpired through COVID and the "locked-down" holidays of the past two years, it does feel like there is a desire to make up for lost time.  To jam-pack our schedules with as much socializing as possible in an effort to take back what COVID took from us.  To hav...

 I feel like the first time I heard the term paradox was while listening to Brene Brown.  She was discussing how much she struggled with paradoxes in her life, and it intrigued me to know more.  I am always fascinated when someone I look up to or consider a role model has a struggle of their own.  Isn't it interesting how we so easily forget the fact that we are all human and as such we will all have work to do in our lives, no matter how far we may have come?  (perhaps food for thought for another post...) As she described what she meant by paradox, I understood partially and went along with my day.  It has only been recently when this idea of holding contradicting beliefs has started to mean something to me.  A paradox is defined as "a statement that seems to go against common sense but may still be true".  For someone who has wrestled with very black and white thinking for much of her life, this whole idea of having two opposing beliefs that ar...

 Often as we surf websites we are encourage to disable our browser's pop-up blocker to enable all content to flow to us.  Makes sense, as having a fulsome experience while navigating the web is what we are looking for.  What would we do if this content felt vicious, harmful or hurtful?  Would we keep our pop-up blocker disabled or would we move to protect ourselves and filter the toxic messaging that was coming our way?  I think that we all know the logical answer. Many of us are living our lives with our internal pop-up blockers also disabled.  We allow all sorts of negative and hurtful messaging to flow into our consciousness on a regular, and sometimes constant basis.  The worst part -- these harmful messages are coming from inside of us.  We look in the mirror without seeing ourselves looking back.  Instead of meeting our eyes with compassion and love, we start to pick ourselves apart, focusing solely on the things that we have decided ar...

Sometimes I have ideas for a post and they sit in draft form for awhile.  Either I can't find the words to properly expand on what I was thinking, or the timing just doesn't seem right. Today's post is a perfect  example of that.  I started reading The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins after listening to her on Rich Roll's podcast a few weeks back.  One passage really stood out for me as it posed the idea of being gentle with ourselves while we are pursing goals and trying new things.  I wanted to write about that, as it is something that I have often struggled with.  As I sat down to write I decided to take a peek at my drafts, and this was the first one that I saw.  Apparently I was not wrong in saying that this whole pursuit is something that I have been working on or noodling for awhile now. The original inspiration for this post came from a Glennon Doyle podcast that I listened to months ago.  Glennon recalled being in a yoga class and having h...