ABBY’S ILLUMINATIONS
GUIDING NOTES FROM ABBY’S LIFE TO CHALLENGE & UPLIFT YOURS:
Little Lessons
Last week I flew into Fort Lauderdale after having been away from home for a week. It was a trip about which I’d been ecstatic, and it didn’t disappoint. I arrived home triumphant, with one hand carrying a token TEDx trophy and the other tucked in the warm palm of the love of my life. …
A Sneak Peek into my Ted Talk
I’m just back from Denver, where I had the honor of presenting at the TEDx Cherry Creek Women event! Throughout my talk and those of my fellow speakers, the audience laughed…they cried… The day was special, to say the least. My topic? Women’s Liberation is an Inside Job: Ending Self Betrayal. For thousands of years, …
Are You Betraying Your Health?
I love the cultural traditions of bringing family and food together, but when did we start believing that eating until we can’t button our pants constitutes freedom, pleasure, and even self-care? There are those with self-control, but I was never one of them. See if you can relate to these former thoughts of mine: Crappy day? Have some ice …
We're Not a Slave to Our Emotions
My son had surgery on his foot to correct its disfigurement and slow the deforming force as he grows. Last year, he had surgery on the other foot. I don’t know how the kid does it, but he smiles more than he frowns. At 3:00 AM, being driven insane by an itch he couldn’t reach …
The Skank in my Head
Over the last many years, I’ve declared war on The Skank who barges into my brain. I’m happy to report that the scorecard is tipping in my favor. After mercifully sleeping through my meditation the other morning though, she woke up on the wrong side of the bed as I stepped out of my …
Excuse me, you want me to do what?
Leave the house? Converse with humans whose flesh I can reach out and touch? You want me to discard the protection of my computer screen, replace my pajama bottoms with jeans that no longer stretch around my waist, risk dirtying my slippers in the elements, or worse, don socks and soled shoes? Well, it just …
My New BFF
Omg, you have GOT to meet my new BFF, Grammarly! She’s A-mazing. Never once has she judged, misunderstood, or betrayed me. And I’m challenging to get along with when it comes to grammar. My spelling is so poor I rewrite entire sentences because an online dictionary can’t even figure out what I’m trying to say. …
has this ever happened to you?
I was mid-sentence with what I’m sure was an insight of sheer brilliance, when a ding rang out from the computer Zooming on the other side of my computer. Milliseconds later, red hot die spread across Louisa’s face. “Sorry,” she said. “Gloria’s kicking the work-flow back to me again when it’s her job. It’s so passive-aggressive.” …
If you do this, do it better than me
I spent Saturday in bed. Really, the whole day. In bed. I watched episodes of Suits until my eyes bled, and texted my friends about how useless I am. Can you imagine? Laying in bed all day while your husband cooked breakfast lunch and dinner for the kids? At least I hope he did. I …
What I learned from working at McDonald's
In a green polyester uniform, amid a haze of fried oil, I stood behind the McDonald’s counter, my fingers flying over the register’s keys. It was 1983 and I’d forged my birth certificate to say I was fourteen, the legal working age. Glancing at the line wrapping out the door, I simultaneously filled a Diet …
Having Gratitude for What I Don't Have
Last night I woke up three times to pee. Three times! Sadly, it’s not unusual since birthing children. Each night, my feet hit my spanking new carpet with the triple plush mat underneath, and I pad off to the bathroom like I’m stepping on a Tempur-Pedic cloud. “Thank,” I say as my right foot takes the …
What We Weren't Taught Growing Up
I wasn’t told that there was a loud, driveling, toxic voice living in my head who would stick around long after I needed her. No one ever showed me how to turn down her volume, and that when I did, I’d find the steady, sincere, sublime voice of my Soul. (I imagine her dressed in airy white, sitting enchantedly in a wicker chair on …
Lessons on Self Worth
There’s a young woman finding herself in my basement. She’s meditating as fast as she can pretending to be confused about what she wants to do with her life, about the answers she has inside her, about her power. She has a married man texting her desperate pleas for her to give him a chance. …
The Student Has Become the Master
Ten days after a surgery requiring a year-long recovery, my guy Wy here, began his college “athletic” career. Due to Covid, he can’t so much as work out with the team. Every day he watches his roommate go off to practice, while he suffocates in their hundred degree apartment alone, doing online classes far beneath his academic capacity, …
Are You In Your Own Way?
I’m training a group of door to door salespeople. They work out of campers in places so remote, I’m elated I can’t train in person. Knocking on doors in a freezing drizzle, they sell. The owner of the company sought out my training understanding that the mindset of his people is the difference of tens of …