Small Step No. 15: You Doing You

One of my most frequently asked questions in a podcast interview or Q&A session is always some measured form of this: OK, yes. I get it. I see the importance here. But how do I get my spouse/roommate/community to support and adapt to my decision to live more simply? How do I live as a

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Hospitality for Introverts

I am forever wondering if our quest for self-exploration has become burdensome, backwards. Enneagrams, Myers-Briggs – the idea of whittling down our complex personalities to a number and a few letters. Are we placing boundaries where they weren’t intended; living within confines that needn’t be there? While I love nothing better than a tidy definition

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The Simplest Party Idea Ever

Your husband is recovering from pneumonia slowly. He is tired. He is stressed. On his desk are stacks of envelopes, invoices, important-looking papers. His birthday is in eight days, and you wonder if you should shelf the celebration for a better time. (There is no better time.) — You text the wives of his friends:

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Small Step No. 10

There’s a tried-and-true tip I’ve often heard from seasoned married folks, one of which is guaranteed to keep arguments fair, gentle and in-the-moment (rather than relying on cheap shots and past scripts), and it is simply this: Avoid two words: (1) Always and (2) Never. There are a few obvious reasons here, one of which

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For Me

One of the greatest shifts in my marriage, possibly in my adulthood as a whole, has also been one of the smallest shifts. It has slipped by unnoticed in the mundane tasks of laundry cycles and dish duty, a simple phrase that has ever so slightly changed the energy in our home: I’m doing this

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Salvaged

As a kid, I was a frequent journaler. For birthdays or at the height of the school year, I’d receive fresh new stacks of composition notebooks, ready to be scrawled upon in childish loops. They were my favorite things. The possibility, the hope, the faith of discovering something new via the written word. A hundred

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