Dr. Linda’s Blog – Page 3

The Dance: Why the Pain of Losing a Pet Is Worth It

August 21, 2018

“Looking back on the memory of the dance we shared…” Garth Brooks’ much-loved song “The Dance” reminds us that the best things in life sometimes lead to painful endings. The song is about a person who realizes what he would have had to miss to avoid the pain often associated with the end of a relationship. Today, the song was on my mind for other reasons. This morning, my s.o. Alan’s beloved Australian Shepherd/Border Collie cross, Topper, who’d worked his way into my heart to a degree I never imagined possible, crossed the rainbow bridge. He was 14, give or

The Color Purple

August 8, 2018

This may not be the most profound thing anyone has ever written, but it is on my mind.
Be on the lookout for purple–in other people, in the things they do, and in the world around you. It’s there.

Why Being Not Okay, is Okay

June 6, 2018

It is okay not to be okay. This I have learned from two friends and my significant other who have lost children to terrible diseases in the recent past. I don’t know that anyone can truly “get” the enormity of the grief that comes with losing a child unless one has actually lost a child. However, I believe my friends and partner when they talk about how heavy that grief is at times. It sounds unbearable and yet it must be borne. People say the most insensitive things to parents who’ve lost children. More often than you’d imagine, people (and

Running Hills: Why We Should Do Things the Hard Way

May 7, 2018

Hill Training Sometimes doing things the hard way is good. Any runner will tell you this. In junior high and high school, I ran on a city track club called the Edmonton Huskies–if you’re from Alberta, there is no connection to the football team, if you’re wondering. Hill training was a big part of our program. As I recall, we usually ran hills on Wednesdays or Fridays during outdoor season. Sometimes we did “30 X a hill” on a long, moderately steep grade. Other times we did “6 X a hill” on a very steep grade, usually made of grass

Guest Blog: A Letter to a Friend by Michael Cameron

April 29, 2018

This week my significant other lost his 17-year-old son–a cancer warrior. Grief is a suffocating, all encompassing emotion that I am just now realizing I know nothing about. My friend Michael, though, does know a thing or two about grief. His girlfriend, Colleen, who was also my junior high friend and track teammate, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend in 2015. Michael wrote the following blog entry sometime thereafter. I have found and continue to find Michael’s post one of the best things I’ve ever read about grief. Only now, though, am I turning to it for my own purposes rather than

Don’t Pursue Happiness; Follow These Steps to Get Happy!

April 25, 2018

There is no point in pursuing happiness. That is, there’s no point in doing stuff that you think will one day lead to being happy. I can almost hear you thinking, “wow, this one’s going to be a downer. No thanks!” Before you stop reading, stay with me for a minute or two. You’ll be, um, happy you did. I am a huge fan of Shawn Achor, positivity psychologist and author of The Happiness Advantage. His Ted Talk is among the most watched of all time too. Here is a link to it. Shawn Achor’s Ted Talk In both his book and Ted Talk,