What would you tell your younger self? That’s the question that inspired my new mini-booklet, 13 Lessons for My 13-Year-Old Self. It’s a short, powerful guide filled with life lessons on love, living, and finding your way.
I originally wrote the list 11 years ago with 10 messages when my beautiful friend Joyce Wycoff asked me if I would contribute to a book she was creating for her niece’s 13th birthday. Joyce republished it recently to celebrate the same niece’s 24th birthday.
I’m so grateful she shared her post with me. As she always does, she inspired me to ‘create better’.
If you would like to read the 13 lessons, you can download a complementary copy of the booklet HERE for a limited time.
I saw an image on Instagram this morning that really resonated with me. A beautiful butterfly with the caption: “Magic happens when you stop shrinking to fit spaces you’ve outgrown.”
It’s how I look at aging. I’ve outgrown my 50s, 60s, and now, I’m growing and expanding into my 70s, devouring every delicious bite of being this age of empowered living.
Somewhere in my 30s, I realized I was being sold a load of horse-manure by the cosmetic industry. “Anti-aging.” “Anti-vaginal odor.” “Anti-anything” some clever marketer thought women should address in order to stay, reclaim, or feel young again.
It was as if they were whispering (though it often felt like shouting), “Being your age is okay, but looking, smelling, and feeling it? No way! That just means you’re old.”
Well, guess what? I’m in my 70s now. And I have not stopped aging. Shocking, isn’t it? What I have done is stop buying into the anti-aging narrative. There is nothing in it for me to be afraid of aging. Heck, I’ve been doing it every single day of my life. I’m an aging expert. And in my vast repertoire of experience, I’ve learned a thing or two about the anti-aging movement.
Anti-aging is anti-women being themselves. It’s a relentless campaign to convince us that our natural state is a problem to be solved.
Anti-aging is a confidence racket. It’s constructed to make us feel bad about how we look, act, dress, talk, and even smell. The goal isn’t to make us beautiful; it’s to make us insecure.
Anti-aging is a multi-billion dollar industry. I can’t fight the industry, but I can fight back by not buying their horse-manure. My wallet is my weapon.
What about you? Are you done shrinking? Are you ready to claim your right to be your age—with all the grace, sass, and dignity you’ve earned?
Let’s start a revolution. A quiet, powerful, and deeply personal revolution.
Your Call to Action:
Stop playing their game. Look in the mirror today and say, “This is me. This is my magic. Aren’t I magnificent!”
What is one small, rebellious act you’re doing to embrace your age? Maybe it’s ditching the painful heels for a pair of shoes that love your feet. Maybe it’s not hiding the grey or wearing a bold new lipstick that makes you feel powerful or finding your power in opting out of make-up entirely á la Suzanne Sommers. Maybe it’s simply refusing to feel ashamed of a new wrinkle and choosing instead to see each one as a celebration of your life story.
Please do share your story in the comments below. Let’s celebrate our earned wisdom, our hard-won freedom, and the deliciousness of being exactly where we are. Because magic doesn’t happen when we shrink; it happens when we expand.
Why the fear of not having a purpose is holding you back—and how to find freedom in every single act.
We talk a lot about purpose. We talk about finding it, earning it, and living it. But in our obsession with finding a purpose, we often trap ourselves in a constant state of anxiety and comparison. We get stuck in an unhealthy emotional morass, believing others have a grander purpose than we do—or that we have non at all. This leads to a cascade of negative beliefs: I’m not good enough. I don’t make a difference. I’ll never measure up. I don’t matter.
The fear of not having a purpose often propels us into dead-end streets and chaos corners. It compels us to keep searching, to never let our guard down, and to stand vigilant for some grand purpose to float by so we can claim it. We tell ourselves, “I’ll finally matter when I find my purpose!”
What if you don’t have to search for purpose? What if all you need to do is live on purpose?
The Heavy Load of Finding Your Purpose
Countless books have been written about finding your purpose. We often see purpose as “what we do in the service of others,” as if it’s a monumental job description we must earn. Yet, what we do in service is simply a reflection of how we live our lives every day, in alignment with our values, principles, and beliefs.
The other night, while having dinner with my two daughters, we went around the table and shared a unique quality we admired in one another. When it was my turn, both of my daughters said, “You have a unique ability to meet people where they’re at and see the good in them.”
My heart felt so light. Since retiring and moving to a quiet Gulf Island, I’ve struggled with the question, “How do I live my purpose when I’m not ‘out there’ in the world, making a difference?” Hearing my daughters’ words, I realized I am making a difference just by showing up in my world every day with an open and loving heart and mind. By being fully present, I am both living my purpose and living on purpose.
There’s great relief in that acceptance. A feeling of spaciousness and possibility. I’ve accepted that my purpose doesn’t have to be some grandiose idea of healing the sick or solving world poverty. It’s simply to live my best, in every moment of every day, so my ripple is one of love, joy, and harmony. In this act, I gift myself peace of mind, body, and heart. And from that space, living on purpose feels easy, and the world around me feels calm and accepting.
The Lightness of Living on Purpose
One of the biggest differences between having a purpose and living on purpose is that having a purpose is passive, while living on purpose is active.
A purpose can be a goal—a destination to reach. Goals are important, but when they’re the singular focus and not rooted in our values, we can lose sight of our impact on the world. Hyper-focused on attainment, we can believe our goal is all that matters – and everyone else better get out of our way.
Living on purpose, however, demands our full engagement with life. It’s an intentional practice that requires our attention. It’s the realization that everything we do, say, create, and think has a ripple effect.
If you want your ripple to be an invitation to others, you must be conscious of the waves you make.
Living on purpose is not about the things you acquire or the goals you achieve; it’s about how you live your life. Living on purpose illuminates the world all around you. And in that brilliance, your light becomes a beacon of hope for others.
Practical Steps for Living on Purpose
It’s easy to live on purpose when you know the values, principles, and beliefs that guide your every action, word, and thought. Clarity of what matters most will automatically underpin everything you do, creating space for you to live intuitively and intentionally.
Here are three simple, actionable steps to start living your purpose right now:
Clarify Your Values: Your purpose is built on your values. Take some time to identify what matters most to you—things like honesty, compassion, creativity, or courage. Ask yourself, “What do I stand for?” Then, write down a list of five or six values that resonate deeply with you. Ask yourself, “How do I live this? For example: The cashier at the grocery store misses charging you for an item. Do you let them know? If honesty is one of your core values, letting them know is never in doubt.
Knowing your values provides a personal compass for your actions.
Conscious Action: Connect your values to your actions. For example, if a driver cuts you off, you can choose to respond with your value of compassion instead of anger. A simple, “Bless them. Forgive me. Forgive them. Bless me,” can restore your equilibrium far faster than endlessly muttering under your breath. (And yes, ‘forgive me’ is important because if you’re human, you probably had a not-so-nice thought or two about them when they cut you off.) This reinforces the idea that every act becomes an expression of your purpose.
When we live on purpose, our values take centre stage.
Embrace the Ripple Effect: Recognize that every action has a ripple. One word shouted in anger can create shockwaves of unease. One word spoken in kindness can resonate like a single harp string pulled in a room full of harps creating a ripple of harmony.By consistently acting from a place of integrity, your positive influence naturally expands. Focusing on conscious living is far more sustainable and fulfilling than constantly searching for a monumental purpose.
To make a difference, live true to your values, principles and beliefs.
Is there a step that feels most accessible to you today? Please share your thoughts and inspire others to live on purpose.
“The world is a cancer, and my soul is the knife with which I will cut it out.”
The Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
I read the news and I want to cry. So much pain, suffering, anger, and angst consume our world. Yet, amidst it all, there is still so much beauty.
I cannot deny the pain and suffering any more than I can deny the profound beauty of this world—its people, animals, and natural wonders. All of it, beautiful. All of it, capable of profound kindness or deliberate cruelty, thoughtful connection or careless disregard, collaboration or obstruction, honesty or deceit. We are capable of all of it. We hold the power to choose: will we align ourselves with Love or with Evil?
Years ago, I met a man who dismissed my belief in the inherent goodness of humanity as a weakness. “You are so naive to believe evil does not exist,” he scoffed. I countered, affirming that I knew evil existed, but believed Love was greater and would ultimately prevail, cutting it out. He then spent nearly five years proving me wrong. By the end of that relationship, I doubted the very existence of love, but I knew the presence of evil intimately.
When he was arrested and I miraculously got my life back, I chose to heal the massive wounds I’d experienced with Love. It was the only force strong enough to save me from despair. Since those days of post-traumatic love—which was, in truth, abuse—I had relaxed my guard against evil. I chose instead to believe that if I simply stayed the course of Love, evil would not prevail.
I’ve had a rude awakening. Evil is afoot. It flexes its muscles across the globe, beguiling those who underestimate its power. It masquerades as benevolence, as all-knowing wisdom, as pure justice—the rightful avenger of wrongs spanning decades, even centuries. It promises to right the ship, but only if we, its unwitting acolytes, remain silent, immobile, complacent, and complicit in its insistent claim that it is the sole path to our salvation.
There is no salvation in following evil. There is no Hail Mary that will rescue humankind from its voracious jaws. Evil wants only to consume goodness, to devour love and corrupt its delicate essence into the fires of hell. It seeks to make humanity bow at its altar and sacrifice all that is good, kind, beautiful, and humane about our shared human condition.
I cannot bow. I must wake up. Awakened, I cannot stay silent. I cannot allow my angst, my heartache, my despair to silence the one thing I know is greater than evil: Love.
And so I stand strong of back, soft of heart, and call out to all good people to drop their guard and give in to that which is our salvation. Our humanity.
Do you ever hear a little voice inside that causes you to doubt your worthiness?
May reminds me to Celebrate LIFE! Celebrate JOY! Celebrate the incredible people who enrich my world, who have stood by me through thick and thin, always believing.
AND – celebrate being ME! I am worthy.
Have you celebrated the amazing you today? If you could whisper something truly uplifting to your own heart right now, what would it be?
Come join me on my Substack today and let’s have a conversation about just how worthy, amazing and magnificent you are!
Dark green cedars stand silent, sentinels against the heaviness of the rain laden sky over Nanaimo harbor. Today, the water is a mirror, promising a smooth voyage to Vancouver. From there, we fly to Calgary, back to the muted tones of early spring still sleeping beneath winter’s blanket.
I want to pull the blankets over my head and pretend the purpose of our visit is purely fun. The times insist I wake up.
Reluctantly I accept the reality of this trip. My husband has a swathe of medical appointments and I am essential to his ease and comfort while travelling. Wife, advocate, Sherpa, and now, caregiver; my role is to ensure any barriers to travel are removed from his path. It’s a role I navigate with a mix of love and reluctance.
This is a journey far removed from the life we imagined when we said “I do.” Ten years ago. Back then, he was a force of vitality: golf, hockey, hiking, and the boundless joy of the Rockies.
Five years later, COPD, an incurable disease that is slowly stealing his breath, and reshaping our lives, changed everything.
I wrestle with those changes every day. Like two opposing tug-a-war teams, I am constantly losing ground to the disease’s demands I give up control. I desperately try to dictate the terms of our uncomfortable co-existence yet know, this disease is the true master. In the starkness of its immutability, I am becoming a living contradiction and predestining myself to a tumultuous journey.
Today’s calm waters offer a stark contrast to the turbulent emotional landscape of caregiving. I resist surrendering to vulnerability, dig my heels in like the proverbial horse being dragged to water when it comes to letting go of the illusion of control. How do you truly inhabit this role when the path is uncertain? How do you find strength when faced with unanswerable questions?
The waters remain calm. Enigmatic. I stand and gaze out at the sea’s glassy surface. I cannot see into its depths yet still, I search for a deeper understanding, a way to find peace amidst the shifting tides.
Perhaps, the true strength of a caregiver lies not in control, but in the quiet acceptance of what is and the certitude that all is as it is meant to be.
The ferry crossing was smooth, a gentle glide from Gabriola to Nanaimo. Now, I sit in Serious Coffee, bathed in the light of a beautiful morning. Alone.
There’s a soothing balm in this solitude, a restorative quietude. No need for conversation, no urge to connect beyond this moment.
Around me, the world unfolds in a symphony of sounds. The cappuccino machine hums its gentle rhythm, steam hissing, a counterpoint to the murmur of voices. Two men by the window, their deep voices rising and falling: a question mark in one, a nasal certainty in the other. To my right, a different scene. Two women, their conversation hushed and intimate, a conspiracy of whispers. One speaks with her hands, a flurry of movement, like a sparrow flitting between bare winter branches. Her voice is a rustle of leaves, while her companion listens, a picture of quiet empathy. A hand reaches out, a touch of comfort offered and withdrawn, and then back to the attentive stillness of listening.
Suddenly, I hear my mother’s voice, a familiar echo in the chambers of my memory. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” she chides, her words sharp, her disapproval clear. I can almost see her hands, those tiny, fluttering gestures, like a hummingbird hovering at a feeder.
“I’m not eavesdropping,” I whisper back, “just observing.” And in my mind’s ear, I hear the click of her tongue, that familiar tsk of disapproval, a sound that once held the power to wound.
My mother, a woman whose love was woven with threads of criticism, a tapestry of warmth and irritation. I carry her memory like an itchy wool sweater, comforting and chafing in equal measure.
I thought she was gone, that she had finally found the peace that eluded her in life, that she had moved beyond the confines of this earthly realm. But here she is, on this bright January morning, a presence in my solitude.
Perhaps she can hear me now, as clearly as I hear her. In life, I rarely granted her the grace of true listening, my responses clouded by judgment and the lingering shadows of childhood hurts.
But now, in this quiet coffee shop, I find myself comforted by her presence. Grateful for the grace that allows me to meet her memory with a gentler heart, a more understanding spirit. And I find hope in the thought that perhaps, even now, reconciliation is possible, in the vast and mysterious expanse that lies beyond this life.
The two women leave. More strangers enter, drawn by the warmth and the aroma of coffee. And I sit alone. Calm. Listening to the clinking of cups, the murmur of voices, the whisper of the cappuccino machine. My mother, I realize, has slipped away again, back into the quiet corners of my memory. But the grace she unknowingly offered remains.
Soon, I’ll be back on the ferry, the salt spray on my face, the island rising from the sea.
A sweet, succulent smile of gratitude warms my heart. Life is beautiful, a tapestry woven from these small, perfect moments.
Dreams. They have this way of both beckoning and terrifying me, a strange duality born from childhood. My brother, ever the ‘good’ big brother on the lookout for an opportunity to rattle his baby sister’s cage, had a knack for turning my stage aspirations (of which there were many!) into fodder for his teasing. “You should be on a stage,” he’d chant, “the first one out of town!”
While I know he didn’t intend to dim my light, his words echoed through the years, a persistent whisper of doubt. Even now, long after he’s gone, I sometimes find myself hesitating, second-guessing the dreams that dare to surface.
My brother, he dreamed of growing old, of walking his daughters down the aisle, of holding grandchildren. Dreams that vanished in an instant on a lonely prairie road, his car a crumpled wreck against a semi-trailer.
With him, went my dream of reconciliation, of smoothing the rough edges of a brother-sister bond frayed by addiction and grief over the loss of our father. We were out of time.
But my dreams, they still have time. Time to unfold, to take shape, to transform from misty wisps into vibrant realities. If only I dare to dream them, to nurture them, to give them the space to breathe and grow.
Yet, my mind, ever the trickster, loves to play its games. I create, I birth ideas into the world, and then, like a mother cow rejecting her newborn, I abandon them. Words and images orphaned, left to fend for themselves in the vast wilderness of my forgotten projects.
It’s a pattern I’ve wrestled with for years, this dance between creation and abandonment. The universe, in its infinite wisdom, often sends a gentle (or not-so-gentle) nudge to remind me of this recurring theme.
This morning, it arrived in the form of a forgotten dream journal I’d created, a relic from last year’s “She Dares: The ReWrite Journey” program. As I reread its pages, I was struck by the power of the prompts, the gentle guidance towards actualizing dreams.
Perhaps, it’s time I took my own advice.
And what about you? What dreams are whispering in your heart, waiting to be awakened? Do share in the comments below. And if you’re seeking a gentle guide on your journey, check out the “She Dares: 21 Day Journey – A Creative Guide to Living Your Dreams. .” It might be just the nudge you need to transform those misty visions into radiant realities.
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The She Dares: 21 Day Journey – A Creative Guide to Living Your Dreams booklet is divided into 3 sections, each designed to unfold layers of self-awareness and insight. Week 1: Heart Week invites you to connect deeply with your core values and emotions, laying the groundwork for authentic dreams. Week 2: Joy Week encourages you to rediscover and cultivate what brings you genuine happiness, a crucial element in the pursuit of any dream. Finally, Week 3: Dream Week propels you towards actionable steps, making those once-distant dreams tangible realities.
The muse has a delightful way of weaving her magic throughout my being, even when I’m not paying attention.
Whether I’m walking along the shore, immersed in the quiet of the forest, or kneading dough for bread, her whispers find me. Like tendrils of smoke, these fleeting thoughts curl into my mind, each one vanishing as quickly as the next.
Yet, when I finally return to the page, fingers poised over the keyboard, a torrent of inspiration flows forth, like a stream rushing down a mountainside, seeking the boundless freedom of the river that will lead it to the sea.
I cannot see its source. I cannot feel its pulse. I can only respond to its urgings to let the muse flow free. Surrendering, consonants and vowls, letters and words tumble out seeking form unhindered by my manipulations. As phrases form and coalesce, and I dive beneath the surface meaning like a pearl diver seeking treasure, my creative essence transforms from a thought into reality.
Immersed in the long exhale of creative expression, my thoughts find space and air to breathe on the page; naked, exposed, vulnerable.
And in that vulnerability, I find my heart soaring, my spirits lifting and my voice rising up to sing out loud, “This is Life and I am so grateful for every moment. No matter how I label them, good, bad or indifferent, every moment is full of life teeming with possibility, adventure, hope and Love.”
What a gift!
The Evidence of Time by Louise Gallagher
To age and not fear, to grow older, unburdened by worry, free from the whispers of wrinkles and lines, the creaks and aches, the evidence of time passing.
To live a life where age holds no sway over worth, where spirit soars beyond the measure of years.
This is the defiance of our days, as time's river flows ever forward, calendar pages turning with quickening pace.
These are the reminders of the inevitable truth: One day, the final page will turn, the heart's rhythm will cease its beat, the last breath will softly fade, and the echoes of "I love you" will fall silent.
No magic potion halts the passage of time, no secret formula holds back the years.
Yet, the choice remains ours: To live each day fearlessly, boldly, bravely, passionately alive, with wonder and awe, celebrating every heartbeat, every breath, every whispered "I love you," as precious gifts weaving the grand tapestry of our days into a life well loved. A life well lived.
I had let my morning meditation practice slip until a few weeks ago. Even though I knew my mornings flowed more smoothly after dipping into the quiet, my “critter mind” was urging me to practice avoidance, not meditation. And I’m well practiced in avoidance.
This morning, as I breathed and worked hard on letting my thoughts dissolve, they drifted in effortlessly, like clouds on a blue sky day. Pushing them away? Nope. Cajoling them into quiet? Ineffective. Corraling them into good behavior? Useless. I simply had to allow. To let go and let be.
Isn’t meditation supposed to be effortless? Isn’t it supposed to be refreshing? Why then is it so hard to simply allow? To let go and let be? Why does “the quiet” feel so elusive when it’s all I’m seeking?
Wikipedia defines meditation as “a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, ‘discursive thinking,’ achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditation process itself.”
Not judging is even harder sometimes than meditating! My “critter mind” likes to disrupt my attempts at sitting in the silence with its litany of reasons why sitting in the silence is nothing to achieve. A busy mind keeps you safe, it seems to say. And I wonder, when did running around in circles ever get anyone anywhere? (Besides maybe dizzy.)
Prayer is defined as “an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with a deity, an object of worship, or a spiritual entity through deliberate communication.”
And my facile mind immediately jumps to, “For what purpose?” Why pray if it’s only to activate a connection with something or someone I cannot see? Isn’t the whole purpose of meditation to make it possible for me to live in the reality of now so that I don’t spin my wheels in the unknown?
And my awakened mind responds, “Release your judgments. Trust the process. Be still.”
And so my meditation goes. Seldom easy. Always enlightening. Stretching me beyond my thoughts into wonderment and awe at our human capacity to think, and outthink, our own thinking.
Meditation
Unbidden, thoughts drift in, filling the mind's vastness, a cornucopia of ideas dancing like sunlight on rippling water.
Prayer
Focused, thoughts ascend, filling the universe with yearning pleas, seeking grace in a world of pain and shadow.
Awake
Released, thoughts gather, filling my being with hopeful whispers, calling me to presence, to let go, to simply be.
Dare Boldly 