On Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and What We Missed between Birthdays

Anna Quindlen inspires, provokes with kindness, and makes her reader laugh and—more importantly—think. She is an expert on being self-aware, shedding light on subtle tendencies that women “of a certain age” share, and on giving us the comfort that sharing personal truths brings. She precisely and humorously captures and portrays every nuanced experience of mothers, wives, and women treated as second class employees on our emotional map between self-incrimination and self-congratulation.

Anxiety as a Way of Life?

Until recently I hadn’t known that there was more than one kind of anxiety, but there is. It turns out that there is one measure of anxiety named state anxiety, […]

From the Blues to Bliss: Transcendental Meditation is Transporting Long Island Women

Let’s face it ladies: the statistics are grim. There’s a plague of stress in the United States. It’s in our schools, our workplaces and our homes. Studies show that one out of four visits by women to physicians involves a prescription for depression. Women today claim to be, on average, forty percent less happy than women forty years ago. There are now more women than men in the workforce, but we are more susceptible to stress at work. Heart disease, already the number one cause of fatality among women, is increasing.

Fear of Change and the Field of Changelessness

Right around the time I learned how to meditate, I read a haiku from the sixth century AD:

He creeps along the log in fear and trembling,
He does not know that the bridge is flowing and the water is not.

For some reason, this haiku rang bells for me. Somehow I had always intuited the truth of this haiku in my own life—that what we experience from day to day and year to year in our lives is ever changing and impermanent. However what lies within us and at the basis of the ever-changing universe is non-changing eternity. Fear of falling off the log is based on a false image of what is real and what isn’t.

Mother’s Day: Mother is at Home

My mother passed away when I was seventeen. But my memories, photos, and the stories my father told me all remind me of who she was to me and what it meant—and still means—to have her influence in my life. More than all of that, I have learned who she was to me by who I am.

My mother was educated and had a career but her nature remained foremost that of a nurturer. She was a cuddler, a sympathizer, an enthusiastic playmate, and a good listener. In my presence, she was always patient, kind, and warmhearted with everyone. Something about her made me feel more than safe and loved—something gave me a sense that no matter what was happening or where I was, my mother was there to support me.