Oct02
Posted on Oct 2 by Ruth Davis
I was talking with a client about her dream to create a dog sanctuary. She envisions a many acred facility that rescues dogs, finds them homes and, for those unadoptable ones, provides great care and companionship. She clearly sees a loving staff working with her, organizing successful fund raising events, and the joy that this work brings her. I invited her to make a list of the steps she can take now to keep this vision alive. While she came up with a wonderful list of self-care actions, I was surprised that there was nothing on her list that had to do with dogs. When I asked her about it, she said, “When I think about volunteering at a local rescue place, I know I would just want to take all of the dogs home with me. And I can’t do that. So I can’t volunteer.” She had created a black and white, all or nothing situation in her mind and it was keeping her from doing the work she loves. I asked my client if she could imagine...
Sep25
Posted on Sep 25 by Ruth Davis
One of the most valuable tools I offer my clients is to practice paying attention. To slow down enough to notice the details around us. To be still long enough to hear the quieter, stronger voice inside. Often, we are so distracted by the noise and activity of our daily lives that we are oblivious to the beauty, the wisdom, the inspiration of what is right in front of us. The other day I saw this image online and immediately thought, WOW, Great questions! What am I trying to CONTROL? What do I need to ALTER in my life? What am I ready to DELETE? Inspiration is everywhere, all around us. Too often, we just aren’t paying attention and so life goes on, same as it ever was. And we go on, same as we ever will be, stuck in the patterns of our days, far removed from what we might really be dreaming we could be and do in our lives. But if we pause and ask ourselves these kinds of hard questions, we honor that deep desire...
Sep18
Posted on Sep 18 by Ruth Davis
“Broken hearted often leads to broken open. And broken open is the perfect environment for finding out who you are and why you’re here. Break and grow.” – Michele Woodward Six years ago, on September 16, 2007, emergency open heart surgery saved my life. I didn’t have clogged arteries or heart disease or a heart attack. I had a myxoma, a very rare benign tumor that was almost completely blocking the blood flow through my left atrium. They discovered it after I had an episode of angina, that sharp ice pick stabbing in the back and chest and the inability to breathe. And yes, jaw pain and arm pain too. But I didn’t go to the ER or call 911. I breathed through it and kept myself calm and then went to Urgent Care the next afternoon. That’s where they saw an abnormality in my blood work, indicative of a clot, and sent me to the Heart Hospital down the street for further tests. A client recently asked me if I experienced a white light epiphany during the surgery, if...
Sep11
Posted on Sep 11 by Ruth Davis
As you may know, I had to put my dear sweet Laddy to sleep last Thursday. While he’d been eating less and walking slower since July, last week there were drastic changes in his behavior and appetite and even in the look of his orange-brown eyes. When Marika and Mabel were here visiting two weeks ago, the four of us enjoyed bluff walks and love fests and lazing around together in the RV. Laddy was being finicky about his food, but he had been since mid-July. He was leaving his kibble but loving the hot dogs, milk bones and home-cooked chicken that I added to his food. A few days before Marika and Mabel returned to Phoenix, I noticed a wound on his foot so we took him to the vet. His blood work looked great and he was still happy to play stick toss every other day. But early last week, everything changed. He didn’t want to walk unless he had business, and crouching to poop was suddenly so uncomfortable that he had to lie down afterwards....
Aug31
Posted on Aug 31 by Ruth Davis
When I think of my grandmother, Bub, I think of food. Potato and lox soup, boiled in an aluminum pot on the stove, soup meat stringing off marrow bones and gefilte fish made from scratch. On Gefilte Fish Day, Bub pushed slabs of raw carp through the electric meat grinder. The smell was so ripe that I had to run through the kitchen holding my breath and nose to avoid the odors. I never stayed to watch her form the wet mixture of fish and chopped carrots into mounds and cover them with a filmy gelatin. But by the time the gefilte fish was cooked and served with spoonfuls of nose-burning horseradish, it was delicious. Bub was a small woman, no taller than five-foot-three, with thick wrists and ankles. She came to the United States in 1915 from Schrednek, a farming village in Lithuania. “We made cheese and butter and I helped out in the shop,” she told me. “I was seventeen and there was nothing for a girl to do, either to be a maid or stay...
Aug28
Posted on Aug 28 by Ruth Davis
Marika and Mabel went back to Arizona yesterday. It was great to spend so much time together and sad to see them go. Sure, we had some moments of tension and disagreements, but, after all these years, we’ve found ways to talk or not talk our way through them. Sometimes there is even compassion and understanding as we work through the friction. And because we show up so present and honest, there are no regrets anymore. Not even when she told me that she no longer has any immediate plans to move to CA. That was an old dream that we shared. But things change. We will see each other again in October when we travel together to Georgia and I’m sure she’ll be back on the coast in the next six months for another fun visit. And, of course, we will talk on the phone, and FaceTime and email and continue to shift and grow and love each other in ways that support us both. This is living in the present. This is what true love is...
