Simply Shine!
Celebrating the simple everyday wonders of life.
Get Happy with Hygge
A New Year is here, a New Dawn is blooming, and it feels like I should be writing something profound and significant. But after so many inspiring words given during the powerful inaugural speeches, what I really want to ask you is this:
Are you making time to hygge your life?
More from the Shine Blog
Welcome, Depression
When Happy People Get Depressed, Part Two This being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesas an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,who...
Don’t Give Up
When Happy People Get Depressed, Part One I woke this morning to a wet pillow, an ache in my chest, and tears falling silently from eyes not yet opened to the new day. My first thought is: Ahhhh. What a relief! For awhile, I just lay there, allowing the emotions to...
Your Love Matters
“The page awaits, pretending to be blank.” It’s the beginning of a new month, and I’m sitting with a blank page and so many ideas that my brain has gone into overload. The ideas are circling and layering on top of one another so fast that I’m losing any thread of...
The Inner Joy of Tidying Up
I’m sitting in the middle of a clutter-clearing project with everything I own piled in a room waiting for me to decide what to keep and what to let go. Have you ever been in the middle of one of those clutter messes? Marie Kondo might invite me to go through the pile,...
Set a New Year Evolution.
Every New Year brings a dialogue about why resolutions don't really work, and many (including me) prefer to simply choose a single word or short phrase, a mantra, to inspire us forward. I call these 'NY Evolutions' because I allow them to change as I grow. I also use...
New Year. New Moment.
#Happy2020 I woke up in the wee hours feeling a bit discouraged that I wasn't feeling a bit more...well, different. Like the Promise of 2020 was being shouted out in so many ways, and here I am feeling it's just another day. Then I read my daily inspiration from...
The Generosity Key
What if your happiest life depends entirely on how many seeds of kindness you plant for others? One thing I’ve noticed is that many people think generosity is about sharing what we already have, and that until we have “enough,” it really isn’t possible for us to be...
Find Your Holiday Sparkle
Frost-covered branches, shimmering so bright. Fresh fallen snow, so powdery & light. Twinkling lights against dark night skies. Watching wonder light a child's eyes. The crunch of boots on paths covered in snow.Singing holy music, watching yuletide candles glow....
Simply Grateful
It’s the little things that melt my heart the most— an unexpected gift, baby laughter, a well-timed glance outside to see the sun casting glittering diamonds upon my favorite tree, the sound of your smile as it whispers my name across a crowded room. I know you’ll...
Harvest Your Blessings
Grapes have been called the fruit of the Gods, and as I turn clusters of this divine fruit into dozens of quarts of happy pink nectar, I might agree. But as I’ve cared for our 80 yards and 10 varieties of grapes over the past few years, I’ve discovered this God-fruit...
Choose Amazement.
Spaciousness can often appear as emptiness, and it's easy to mistake that for a lack of importance. Until we sit in the empty space for long enough to hear what is really going on beneath the surface of life...like in the ocean, where layers and whole ecosystems live...
Savor the Beautiful
"Once there was a woman who wanted to change the world & at first, she thought it'd be easy, because if everyone could see how beautiful it'd be, it'd take about a minute...but all the people she talked to were too busy to stop & listen. So, she went off &...
