Take 5

Annah ElizabethHappy Happens ™, Relationships, The Five Facets of Healing ™Leave a Comment

Happy Sunday, Journeyer! This week’s title comes to you from this week’s marriage counseling session. I haven’t written anything about that part of mine and Hubby’s relationship for many, many months. Here’s why: The last time I did, a beloved reader questioned me about sharing this sort of information and shared her concerns about how discussing our marital work might somehow inhibit … Read More

Homecoming

Annah Elizabeth4 Comments

“Dare to dream,  hope, believe, seek, feel, find, and love.”                                                                ~Chinese fortune This morning I had one of those mother-child moments that was both extraordinary and ordinary. “I think … Read More

Letting Go

Annah ElizabethUncategorized20 Comments

  Warren and I had our second appointment with a marriage counselor last week.   This isn’t a new rodeo for us, as the saying goes.   The first person we saw collectively was my own Counselor Hank from many moons ago.   Actually the first person we saw, more than twenty years ago, was a guy who scribbled notes … Read More

HOLY MATRIMONY!

Annah ElizabethLeave a Comment

  Holy cow! Holy cold! Holy hail! Holy hell! Holy shit! HOLY MATRIMONY! I am tired, Journeyers. Tired of revisiting the Same. Old. Arguments. Tired of fighting…to be heard…understood…validated… Tired of fighting to end the madnesses that are the foundations for relationship strife… Tired of fighting for all of us, my family, especially when I often feel like I’m the … Read More

It Takes Two

Annah ElizabethLeave a Comment

  It happens to all of us at some time in our lives. Criticism. How we dress. Act. Eat. Sleep. Chew our gum. Wear our hair. Write. Somebody’s going to have an unfavorable opinion. What’s that saying, “We can’t please everyone, all the time?” Yeah. That. When we choose to live in a way that puts us out in front … Read More

On Second Chances and Doing Things Twice

Annah ElizabethLeave a Comment

I had an epiphany while showering this morning. The good kind of awakening, one that softens our grief and helps pave the way to peace and acceptance. As the spray washed over me I thought about a conversation Warren and I had earlier this week. How I despise doing things twice. Again, came to mind, followed by a series of … Read More

Let the Sun Shine In

Annah ElizabethLeave a Comment

I spent yesterday, sitting by the ocean’s edge, reading, thinking, and making notes. I thought about the questions Gary Chapman asks at the end of The 5 Love Languages chapters. “There would be fewer divorces if only people _______________” would work harder to compromise, to understand one another, and be willing to make the first move. “Has there ever been … Read More

The (Not-So) Perfect Day

Annah ElizabethLeave a Comment

I’ve never really paid much attention to the cards hanging on my therapists’ waiting room fridge. Until today. Today these simple words drew me in. “What is your perfect day?” somehow filled me up, expanded my rib cage and my lungs and my heart and my head with promise and contentment and a sense of pleasure. But right now, after … Read More

I Could Use a Friend (or seven) Right About Now

Annah ElizabethLeave a Comment

Journeyers, I need you right now. A couple of weeks ago, something inside of me broke. And instead of trying to fix it, I buried it. I went on weekend trips with Warren and pretended to myself and him and the world around us that we were happy. That I was happy holding his hand and standing by his side. … Read More