During my time in Aix, a family friend introduced me to a wonderful French woman named Frédérique. Frédérique previously lived in Victoria and she maintains close ties with the west coast of Canada. She kindly offered to host me for lunch with her family and they warmly welcomed me into their home. We enjoyed a lovely meal together on the patio, over several hours, while she shared stories about her time living in Canada, and I shared about my experience living in France. Frédérique spoke French with me the whole time and she was incredibly encouraging of my efforts with the language.
The following week, Frédérique and her sister, Olivia, invited my daughter and I to join them on a day trip to swim in the Mediterranean at Istres. They took us to a quiet and private spot that used to be part of a quarry. The stone had been cut along a long flat shelf and it provided a perfect jumping platform. The ocean was warm and inviting; and we floated happily together in the highly salinated waters. It was a beautiful and unique experience: one that we enjoyed thanks to their generosity and knowledge of the local area.
One of the many gifts of travel is the opportunity to meet kind strangers who welcome you into their lives and community. Although our time was short together, I have formed a deep heart connection with Frédérique. She is a real kindred spirit and I know that she will be someone I stay in touch with for many years to come. #JoyBlogging
Today is the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day in Canada. It is both a day of mourning and reflection, as well one of action and hope for a better future ahead. I am honouring this day, in part, by highlighting a poem, “Wild West”, written by an Indigenous author, Cobra Collins.
Cobra is a Mohkínstsis-based mixed Indigenous and Metis poet. She has represented Vancouver on a national level at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, as well as collaborated with artists of different backgrounds for dance (Fluid Movements Arts Festival) and performance festivals (IKG 1 ! Live Performance Festival). She currently sits as Indigenous advocate on the Writers’ Union of Canada’s (TWUC) National Council. Cobra was also honoured to be shortlisted as a nominee for Calgary’s 2016 & 2018 poet laureate.
It was a beautiful, warm September evening for our community picnic and Meet the Teacher night at the school. Our Parents Advisory Council (PAC) executive came together and organized for pizza, drinks and The Ice Cream Truck to be on site. Families brought their chairs and blankets to put on the field to gather. It was the first time in over two years that we were able to come together, freely access the school, and meet the teachers and administrators in person. There was a lot of laughter and smiling faces. It felt wonderful to be a small part of making this special event take place. #JoyBlogging
Mr. Money Moustache is the alias of a Canadian expatriate named Peter Adeney, who saved enough money in his twenties, working as a software engineer, to retire at age thirty. He calculated a way to make these early pay cheques last using a strategy of sensible investment, and a rigorous, but manageable, frugality. Living with intention is his life’s work. “I’ve become irrationally dedicated to rational living,” he says.
Mr. Money Moustache defines retirement as the freedom to do what he wants when he wants. He retired in late 2005, with six hundred thousand dollars in investments, and a paid-off house worth two hundred thousand. He figured he could rely, conservatively, on a return of four per cent per year. He determined that the family could live on twenty-four thousand a year in expenses: so he needed to save twenty-five times that amount.
“Ten Bucks is a lot of money,” he writes, “So you need to respect it.It is a critical brick in the early retirement castle you are building. If you save $796 per week, for ten years, and get a 7% compounded investment return, after inflation, you’ll have $600,000 sitting around ready to party for you. . . . Let’s say you’ve got two income earners working together. Now each one has to save only $398 a week. There are 112 waking hours in each week. Each person has to make 40 successful $10 decisions each week—or one $10 decision every 2.8 waking hours.”
In his blog, his goals are to: 1) To make you rich so you can retire early; 2) To make you happy so you can properly enjoy your early retirement; and 3) To save the whole human race from destroying itself through overconsumption of its habitat. You can learn more about his work through listening to this great interview hosted by Tim Ferriss.
I am interested in attachment theory, especially as it relates to relationships and dating. It is really helpful to understand your own attachment style, as well as how to identify the style of a potential partner. According to the theory, there are three major attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Secure people assume that they are worthy of love, and that others can be trusted to give it to them. Anxiously attached people assume that others will abandon them—so they cling, try too hard to accommodate others, or plunge into intimacy too rapidly. Avoidantly attached people are similarly afraid of abandonment; instead of clinging, however, they keep others at a distance. Attachment is a spectrum, and it can change over time; it is common, for example, to exhibit more insecure attachment when stressed. But we each have a primary attachment style that we demonstrate most often.
An attachment styles is based, in large part, on our early relationships with our caregivers. If our caregivers were warm and validating, we become secure. If they were unresponsive or overprotective, we can develop insecure attachment, as we believe that others will desert or harm us. To protect against anticipated mistreatment, we act anxiously or avoidantly (or both). Although early experiences with caregivers establish expectations about how we will be treated, these expectations evolve in other relationships, and they shape those relationships in turn.
There are three primary, underlying dimensions that characterize attachment styles and patterns. The first dimension is closeness, meaning the extent to which people feel comfortable being emotionally close and intimate with others. The second is dependence/avoidance, or the extent to which people feel comfortable depending on others and having partners depend on them. The third is anxiety, or the extent to which people worry their partners will abandon and reject them.
Secure: Low on avoidance, low on anxiety. Comfortable with intimacy; not worried about rejection or preoccupied with the relationship. “It is easy for me to get close to others, and I am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.”
Anxious: Low on avoidance, high on anxiety. Crave closeness and intimacy, very insecure about the relationship. “I want to be extremely emotionally close (merge) with others, but others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t love or value me and will abandon me. My inordinate need for closeness scares people away.
Avoidant: High on avoidance, low on anxiety. Uncomfortable with closeness and primarily values independence and freedom; not worried about partner’s availability. “I am uncomfortable being close to others. I find it difficult to trust and depend on others and prefer that others do not depend on me. It is very important that I feel independent and self-sufficient. My partner wants me to be more intimate than I am comfortable being.”
I spent a beautiful morning walking along the stunning Antrim coastline: beginning at the Giant’s Causeway and ending at Dunseverick Castle. The castle is an ancient royal site of the Dál Riada, a Gaelic kingdom from at least the 5th century AD. Saint Patrick is recorded as having visited the site, where he baptized Olcán, a local man who later became a Bishop of Ireland. The castle was captured and destroyed by General Robert Munro in 1642, and his Cromwellian troops in the 1650s, with only the ruins of the gate lodge remaining. The northern area contains an oval depression of wet ground which is thought to be a holy well, known as Saint Patrick’s Well.
As I explored this desolate and ancient site, I discovered a lone Hawthorne tree. In Ireland, the Hawthorn is synonymous with the ‘Sidhe’ or Fairies. From the times of the druids the tree was highly valued as a source of medicinal remedies. The flowers, leaves, and berries were used to treat conditions of the heart, and lower blood pressure.
Certain hawthorn trees, especially those associated with Holy Wells, are known as “Rag Trees” or “Wishing Trees”. Historically, cloth strips taken from the clothing of an ill person were tied to the branches of the tree as a petition to a local saint or deity. Local people also tie strips of colourful cloth to the wishing tree as a symbol of their prayers or wishes. These items are known as clotties. It was an honour to come upon this beautiful and sacred offering. #JoyBlogging
“When people show you who they are the first time believe them. Not the 29th time. When a man doesn’t call you back the first time, when you are mistreated the first time, when someone shows you lack of integrity or dishonesty the first time, know that this will be followed many many other times, that will some point in life come back to haunt or hurt you. Live your life in truth. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. You will survive anything if you live your life from the point of view of truth.”
Created by Mel Robbins, the 5 Second Rule can be used to break any bad habit, interrupt self-doubt and negative self-talk, and push yourself to take the actions that will change your life.
Before I left for my trip to Europe, I planned a dinner out with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Kathy. She picked me up from my place and asked if we could quickly stop by her house before we headed downtown to the restaurant. As we walked in her front door, I was surprised to see the smiling faces of some of my best friends in the world. They had all gathered together to wish me well and send me off on my trip in style. It is such a gift to have people in your life who celebrate your successes and cheer you on. We enjoyed an incredibly special dinner, with a cheese platter from Charellis, a taco bar from Little Piggy Catering, and a pavlova from Crust Bakery. The best part of gathering with these beautiful humans is how much we laugh together and enjoy each other’s company. It was an experience that I will always cherish. #JoyBlogging
Breath by Breath 