“Faith and prayer both are invisible but they make impossible things possible.” – unknown
About a dozen years ago, a good friend told me a story about her son who was about seven or eight-years-old at the time. Their neighbor’s dog had gone missing and her son was worried. So they looked everywhere they could think of. When they didn’t find the dog, they went home and said a prayer for its safe return. By the next morning, the dog had returned home.
Shortly after, her son was worried about getting a new class seating assignment. He didn’t want to have to sit next to a particular kid. So he prayed about it before he went to bed.
When he came home from school the next day, his mom asked him about the seating arrangement. Did he have to sit next to the kid he didn’t want?
Her son answered, “Of course not. I prayed about it.”
Ah, the wisdom of kids.
I love the time talking with my kids right before bedtime. They snuggle in to bed, we talk about the highs and lows of the day, and if there is a nagging worry or hurt, it usually comes tumbling out.
Then we pray, I kiss them goodnight and turn off the light. Rarely does a worry persist to the morning. They turn it over to a Higher Power and then let it go.
Of course they have smaller worries – but they also have a good practice. One that I need to remember for myself.
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” – Winnie the Pooh
There’s a lot of grief that comes with parenting, isn’t there? And I’m not referring to the grief the kids give us. I’m talking about the variety that comes with letting go.
My 10-year-old daughter< Miss O, changed the wallpaper of my phone to be a rotation of pictures of her and her younger brother. Now every time I tap the phone, I see a picture of one of the two of them, usually as younger kids.
Along with the cute pictures comes the grief. It’s small but I feel a stab of knowing I’ll never hold them on my hip like that again. Or that the era of toddler speak that required Momma interpretation has ended. Or that we don’t have so many moments of un-self-conscious joy anymore. There are all sorts of things to mourn as I get that momentary hit of how much we’ve changed. As neuroscientist Maya Shankar explains, every change comes with a loss of identity.
When I leaned into the grief, I found three things blooming underneath.
Gratitude. My sister-in-law’s mom, Georgia, repeatedly told me a story when I first had kids. She said that when my sister-in-law was six or seven, she asked Georgia to play. Georgia laments that her reply was, “No, Honey, I’d rather read my book.”
I learned from that story to say “yes” so that I’m not talking about it when I’m 75-years-old. There have been many moments it has been hard to put down my book or stop progress on something I want to get done. But more or less, when my kids have said, “Mommy, look?” or “Mom, do you want to play ball?” I’ve said yes. So now when I feel the pangs of grief that come with letting go the younger selves of my kids, I also feel the gratitude for all the memories we have made and continue to make.
Learning. My kids have learned to walk, talk, ride a bike, read, play musical instruments, bat a ball and a myriad of other things. But the grief makes me realize how much I’ve learned as well. Things like that I had name my feelings so I could teach them how to name theirs. Also how to pitch baseballs, get grass stains from the ballfield out of pants, make slime, and clean slime from clothes too. These years have not only been full of memories but also lessons and growth too.
Faith. Miss O is heading to middle school next year. The horizon is already changing with boys, more complex relationships, and a wider circle of independent activities. The number of things I can’t control is growing exponentially larger every day.
Of course, I’ve never been able to control much. This whole journey of parenting has helped me lean into faith. To say “yes” to making memories, learning, loving and leading, and then leave the rest to God.
Grief is uncomfortable. Even the small “g” kind that I’m feeling these days. But underneath it is a whole lot of goodness that reminds me to lean in to creating a life worth growing out of.
“A heart that loves is always young.” – Greek Proverb
My kids and I attended a memorial service for a 98-year-old friend, Jean, this past weekend. There is a lot of life to honor when someone lives that long.
It’s tempting to do it by what she did: she was a mother to four children, a member of her church for more than 70 years, she was an elementary school teacher, and when she retired from teaching, chose to work at the information booth at the local mall for more than 20 years.
Or by what she loved: she loved to play bridge and to cook. She cooked for the church youth group every week for 4 years and then published a cookbook of how to feed large groups.
But what struck me most was the quality of her relationships. She made friends wherever she went. In fact, I didn’t get to know her well until she was in her 90’s. Jean made the effort to reach out to me with little things she passed along from her family to my kids. I wrote a post about her in 2021 when she gave me a copy of the cookbook she published in the 1980’s. There was a woman at the service who had been a friend of Jean’s for 94 years.
But Jean’s life wasn’t just a walk in the park. Forty years ago, one of her daughters was murdered by a stalker when she was in her late 20’s. Going through that ordeal was when Jean got to know my dad so I know she forged relationships in good times and in bad.
Here’s what I loved about going to Jean’s service. It was a reminder to me that even when life seems complicated, messy and hard, we make it through because of the relationships we build. And it’s never too late.
“Sometimes it’s okay if the only thing you remembered to do today was breathe.” – unknown
There’s a difference between being tired and exhausted, isn’t there? If I wasn’t so exhausted, I’m sure I could tease it out. Somehow an avalanche of work obligations, the kids school and social commitments, and holiday preparation all landed at once in my life. I’ve been tackling as much as I can every day, sleeping hard every night, and then getting up to try to shovel out again.
Somewhere in there I’ve noticed three things that become a lot harder when I’m exhausted: being present, generating humor, and keeping the faith. As someone who typically has a lot of energy, or at least consumes enough sugar to fake it, I was surprised that those depend on having some gas in the tank. [case in point, I think I could have made that sugar joke a lot funnier if I wasn’t so tired!]
As usual, my kids save me. Usually because they provide so much distraction that I can’t take getting stuff done too seriously.
But in this specific case, because I had to take them to a delightful indoor play place for a birthday party this weekend. Painted all over the walls were some really good quotes that pointed out the benefits of play:
“Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap.” – Robert Fulghum
“It’s a happy talent to know how to play” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Those who play rarely become brittle in the face of stress or lose the healing capacity of humor.” Stuart Brown
I can’t be the only one exhausted at this time of year so I thought I’d share these with you. Also, I think I write about this every year about this time so I’m hoping that writing about these will help future me skip the stress and remember to play. [Again, I think that had some potential to be funnier.]
Here’s to play – or at least cookies and milk and then a nap!
“Things are always in transition. Nothing ever sums itself up the way we dream about.” – Pema Chodron
I had this quirky social anxiety when I started the fertility process to have my kids via in vitro fertilization (IVF). It seems so silly now. But at the time I kept thinking that because I was in the process of trying to have kids as a single parent that everyone would know that I was the one who wanted kids. Yep, that was going to be obvious. 🙂
It’s hard to say why that seemed important to me at the time – there is lot to unpack when it comes to family and gender expectations. And perhaps parents who get pregnant the traditional way have the same feeling of vulnerability. It’s hard to know because often family planning is done behind closed doors.
It’s one of the many reasons that I love Mari Sarkisian Wyatt’s book, Saving the Fourth Generation and our conversation on the How To Share podcast. She magically, with self-awareness and dark humor, puts words to the complexity of the IVF process and what it’s like to have goals and obsessions for which it’s worth suffering the ups and downs, grief and miracles.
Mari and I talk about the different types of goals we have as we go through life and her Armenian grandmother’s wisdom about what it takes to make them happen.
There’s so much legacy in Mari’s story because her quest is in many ways a response to the shattering trauma that came from both of her grandparents’ families being decimated in the Armenian massacre of 1915.
We talk about Mari’s way forward as the sole child of her generation to have kids. She tells us how she navigated both the price and process of IVF. Her story is heartbreaking, miraculous and completely gripping.
We talk about her advocacy for her autistic son and how writing about her IVF process, 20 years after the fact provided some healing and delight in the miracle of family.
Mari’s story involves a lawsuit so in accordance with the settlement she’s not on screen for this episode. Nonetheless, Mari is entrancing as she shares the power of her journey and the warmth of her voice.
I know you’ll love it.
Takeaways
This is the story of what women and their partners are willing to go through to have babies by IVF at the turn of the 21st century.
Mari’s quest quickly became an obsession and she notes obsessions can hurt the people you love.
Mari says if you just keep working toward your goal one step at a time, you might just succeed. Hopefully your family will forgive you.
Writing this book nearly 25 years after her IVF journey has been healing for Mari and her family.
The message is about resilience, personal growth, and the beauty of ordinary days.
Here’s a clip from Mari talking about her incredible book, Saving the Fourth Generation:
Here are some ways you can watch this amazing and thoughtful episode:
What if “trying” doesn’t have to mean pushing harder?In this episode, host Wynne Leon talks with author and New York Insight Meditation Center co-founder Joseph Schmidt about The Torchbearer—a collection of short stories born from an unexpectedly effortless creative process. Together they explore the mindset shift from effort to openness:how letting go of the agenda can create space for insight, transformation, and a deeper, more alive way of meeting each moment.Try smarter, not harder: why forcing outcomes can block creativity—and what changes when you partner with the process instead.Mindset shift to “empty hands”: Joseph’s Zen chaplaincy training and the practice of entering a room (or a moment) without an agenda.Personal growth through discovery: how his characters—and we as readers—find the next move by noticing what’s already here.Feeling alive at the edge of the unknown: mindfulness as the place where consciousness meets what happens next.Belonging as a practice: building a bond of belonging by showing up with curiosity, care, and presence.If you’ve been working hard but feeling flat, this conversation is an invitation to loosen your grip, step back into the present, and discover a more natural flow—one where growth comes from attention, not strain. Listen in for a gentler (and often more powerful) way to create, connect, and keep beginning again.Perfect for you if:you’re craving a mindset reset, rebuilding your creative confidence, deepening a mindfulness practice, or simply want to feel more awake and engaged in your everyday life.The Life of Try is a personal growth and self‑help podcast about getting unstuck, navigating uncertainty, and choosing to try—even when it’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, or not your idea.Hosted by Wynne Leon, the show explores how realgrowth, reinvention, and discovery often begin not with confidence or clarity—but with a single attempt. Through thoughtful interviews, reflective conversations, and real‑world case studies, each episode examines what it lookslike to keep going when doubt shows up, plans fall apart, or life forces a change you didn’t ask for.This podcast is for anyone who:Feels stuck or uncertain about what's nextIs navigating change, burnout, or reinventionWants to live more intentionally without pretending that growth is easyBelieves (or wants to believe) progress starts by trying – again and againThe Life of Try isn’t about hustle or perfection.It’s about learning as you go, surfacing what matters, and sharing what you discover along the way.If you’re ready to surf the uncertainty, outlast the doubts, and step into your own try‑cycle, you’re in the right place.Links for this episode:Creating Without Elbow Grease transcriptThe Torchbearer: and other Stories of Borderline Redemption by Joseph Schmidt on AmazonJoseph Schmidt bio – New York Insight Meditation Center
“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.” – Robert Kiyosaki
On a recent afternoon I was going through the mail in the mailbox and found an unsigned, handwritten note on a plain piece of paper that read (including word error), “Please do not leave you dog out barking. It is unpleasant for neighbors.”
My ten-year-old daughter, Miss O, saw the look on my face as I tried to discern the message. She came to read over my elbow. Sensing a family meeting, six-year-old Mr. D wandered over and asked what we were doing. We read the note through one more time.
“But Cooper doesn’t bark,” Mr. D said. And he’s right, Cooper isn’t a barker. He’ll steal your socks and your steak but he’s quiet about it.
“And we don’t leave him outside,” Miss O added. Also true. Cooper is in the habit of lying on the front porch to watch the neighborhood but that’s when we’re home and the door is open.
“Maybe they have us confused with someone else,” I mused.
We couldn’t figure out the note but we were united in our righteous indignation in defense of Cooper’s honor. Mr. D suggested he rip up the note and throw it as far as he could.
It wasn’t until the next morning in the shower that I connected the dots. One day the week before we were getting ready to leave the house so that I could drive the kids to camp. Cooper was out on the front porch. I called him in and locked the door.
But when I came home about 90 minutes later after dropping the kids and picking up supplies, Cooper was on the front porch and the door was unlocked. One of the kids must have opened the door to check the weather and Cooper snuck out. He wasn’t barking when I came home so I didn’t realize it right away. He must have barked when he realized he was trapped out there.
The funny thing was that I almost didn’t tell the kids once I figured it out. Our righteous indignation felt so comfortable that I kinda wanted to keep wearing it.
But I also know that it builds up over time. The vulnerability of confession doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’ve found owning my errors and frailty keeps my pipes clean. Everything flows better when I don’t let the grime build up. More than that, I feel everything more fully when I shake off the protective coat of righteous indignation or defensiveness.
And it creates space for learning. When I told the kids my solution to the mysterious case of the barking dog, they both nodded and went, “Ooohhh, right!” I bet we’ll remember that lesson.
“Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
When I was climbing mountains, I noticed a funny thing when we roped up on the higher slopes of a mountain. We transformed from being individual hikers to becoming a team. The physical manifestation made a psychological difference.
Fortunately, I’ve never had to arrest the fall of someone else while on a rope team. But I have willingly climbed into a crevasse. It made me immensely grateful for the people above holding on to the rope.
A similar team phenomenon happened to me and my kids a couple of weeks ago when we were on vacation.
It was perfectly smooth when the kids and I decided to go paddleboarding after dinner. But by the time we got our paddleboards into the water, it was starting to blow again.
We’d been paddling every day for ten days to get the feel for the tides and current. At the beginning of the vacation, six-year-old Mr. D was paddling with me riding on the back of his board. Once he’d gotten proficient enough with his strokes, he graduated to be on his own.
So Mr D was on his own paddleboard. Ten-year-old Miss O had decided she just wanted to ride along on mine. On this night, Mr. D wanted to go all the way down the bay to the pirate flag, a notable marker about a mile down the beach from where we launched.
When we were about halfway there, the wind was present but not too much of a factor. We held a family meeting to make sure we wanted to continue. Mr. D had looked at that flag for 10 days and was determined to get there.
We celebrated momentarily when we reached the pirate flag. Then Mr. D said he was tired and just wanted to rest. At nearly the same moment, the wind whipped up and started pushing us farther away from home.
I said aloud, mostly for Miss O’s benefit, “Please, God, help us.” We weren’t in immediate danger but it was going to be a hard paddle back. At any point, we could have paddled 20 yards to the to the beach and walked back. It would have been a slog pulling the boards but it was a viable option.
Miss O got philosophical about how we ask God for help. We weren’t asking for it to be easy – just for help in any form. As it was, Miss O volunteered to get on Mr. D’s board to both give it more weight and to paddle.
Even with the two of them, they were being pushed backwards by wind. So I attached my leash to their board and we paddled back as a team. I paddled on my board, Miss O and Mr. D took turns paddling on theirs. Roped together, we slowly made our way home.
The overall feeling when we hit the beach? Gratitude. Thank God Miss O had opted to ride along and had fresh arms. Thank God she made the transfer from one board to another without mishap. Thank God for making us a team.
Because that was what stuck with us. Just like with climbing, roping together turned paddling into a team building exercise -and it worked. There are so many ways we are buffeted by the winds of life. A team can make all the difference.
“I didn’t see one tree hurrying or worrying.” – Melody Beattie
I came to a full stop when I read the quote for this post. It was in a meditation book I’ve been reading in the mornings. Journey to the Heart: Daily Reflections by Melody Beattie. She was talking about visiting the redwoods in Northern California. Trees that have stood for hundreds of years growing steadily and weathering whatever came. “I didn’t see one tree hurrying or worrying.”
First, the beauty of one person being able to write something so powerful that it touches another. Isn’t that incredible we can do that?
Second, because I’ve felt unmoored in the last few weeks. The end of the school year came with so many opportunities to volunteer, amazing teachers to recognize, and fun to plan. Then we traveled to San Francisco for a family party. Upon our return, I landed in a week where the kids had vast amounts of free time and I struggled to get much done.
Too much fun, really. But I still felt like a boat without its keel in, being blown about by this and that without much ability to set my own direction.
And all that fun brought me to the third thing. I once heard an interview with Dr. Scott Peck – I think it was with Oprah. He said something like, “People ask how I get so much done. I reply that I’m able to because I spend two hours a day doing nothing. I used to call it my thinking time but then people felt free to interrupt. So I changed to call it my praying time and it made all the difference.”
Nature knows that we don’t need to hurry, scurry, and worry. Thanks to that one line written by a wise observer, I remember now too.
Have you read or written one line that has brought you to a full stop lately?
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” – Joseph Campbell
Waiting well. I admit that the title of this post is aspirational. But I’ve been working on it and have to say that I’ve made progress in the last few years.
Here’s the latest thing I’ve been waiting for. I’m buying a car from my neighbors who are moving back to England. I need a car that has a third row of seats for when I carpool. And I’m such a terrible negotiator that if I went into car dealership to buy one, I’d probably introduce myself by saying, “how can I pay you more?” Suffice it to say, buying my neighbors car is a great option for me.
But the timeline is pretty variable. I planted the seed and they liked the idea. Then I’ve had to let it ride as they worked out all their more important tasks: securing a new house in England, shipping all their stuff, moving the kids and getting them settled in their new schools, and selling their house here in Seattle.
Here’s what’s helped me getting better at waiting: I’ve realized I’m not in charge. And I think that no matter your spiritual beliefs, we can all agree Wynne Leon isn’t running the show.
I’ve come to see that intent is like throwing an inner tube into the stream of life and then riding it wherever it goes.
My metaphorical inner tube snagged on a tree last week when my car died with about a week to go before I can buy the new one. I’d loaded my kids and the dog into the car on a Saturday morning to go on an adventure and it wouldn’t start. Of all the places and times to not start, in the garage on a Saturday morning isn’t a bad one.
So I rented a car. When I got to the agency, they said they I had a choice between a Jeep and a VW. We choose the VW — and it was even the same model we are buying. Funny how this stream of life flows.
Soon we’ll close on buying our friend’s car and be on to waiting for the next thing or milestone. It seems that the trick is enjoying the float down the river.
I host the How to Share podcast, a podcast about how to share anything – to the appropriate audience, with the right permissions, at the most opportune time.
“Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account.” – Anne Wilson Schaef
I spent the last four days on the dark side. It started about 10 days ago when my nine-year-old daughter got sick. And then my five-year-old son and I succumbed a week later. Nausea, congestion, achy joints, headache, low energy – the works.
As much as I hate being sick, it always reminds me of how integrated mind, body, and spirit are. When something interferes with my usual blend of energy, optimism and faith, I get a glimpse of the flip side of fatigue, doubt, and cynicism. The foundation of what I believe to be so solid all of a sudden is revealed as a glass floor.
In the fifteen years before he retired, my dad was a pastor of a church in an affluent community. He remarked that it was hard for people who were so successful to see their spiritual needs. Flipping through some of his sermons from that era, that theme emerges again and again. When we are doing well, do we remember to tend to the beliefs and practices that see us through tough times?
It reminds me of people who are hard to help. You know the ones in your life that always have a plan and so much self-sufficiency that they never need a favor? I don’t have to look far because I’ve just described my family, myself included. If people are out of reach for human assistance, is it hard for God to help them too?
At least when I was sick and didn’t feel like eating, I had plenty of food for thought.
Surprised By Joy 