Guess how this patient was feeling when I walked into her room? NOT GOOD! She blurted out the first word that came to her mind, and I've never forgotten her or the experience we had together. As sick as she was, we shared more than a couple belly laughs. And here’s what it meant to her. A full year later, I received a call from this woman. She had lost the art in the transition out of the hospital, and had spent a year searching, frustrated, telling her friends and family abo

Is it true that nothing prepares us for losing someone who means everything to us? What about the childhood you lost because [fill in the blank.] Or the career that made you feel like you had a real purpose, only to get cut in the quick slice of a budget? Or the relationships that fell by the wayside for reasons known or unknown. Or the leg that got amputated, or the hair that fell out, because of illness and treatments that your body couldn’t manage in any other way.

Meeting your real self on a blank page is not just energizing, it improves your health and sense of well-being. And it transforms you into a

the noise in our heads like traffic in india congested chaos Do you ever get trapped in head traffic? If you're a 21st century adult, I'm guessing you probably do. It’s hard not to, actually, when life feels like a race to do it all, be it all, cram it all into living at the speed of light. If we were computers, that might not be a problem. But we’re not. We have bodies, hearts and spirits that get left behind in that madness. And they don't like being ignored. Thus, the head

When death comes for someone you can’t even imagine letting go of, it is a heartbreaking, soul-crushing experience. No one can prepare you for what you will feel. And what you feel might be so overwhelming and intense, that you do the natural thing - you put a barricade around yourself so no more pain can get in. The thing is, if pain can’t get in, neither can healing. Or love. Or the sweetness of memories. All those things that broke your heart also once gave you the greates

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. According to hospice workers, that is the #1 regret of the dying. I was reminded of this recently, when I walked into the room of a patient who was upset because his family wanted him to have a risky surgery that offered no real promise of success. He had spent too many hours on the operating table in recent years, and he just didn’t have it in him to undergo one more. When I asked h