Hope Boulevard by J. Hope Suis

There’s a lot of talk going around about social distancing. In fact, it’s probably the top trending new phrase for the last year and a half.  There are signs plastered on almost every public door you walk through and even stickers and arrows on floors to show you the EXACT spot you need to stand/wait.  Some of the rules have been relaxed (although I’m afraid we are in for a revisitation shortly.) But the idea is simple: keep your physical distance from those around you in a public/social setting.  This barrier serves as a protective field. For you from someone else. And for someone else from you. You each have a safe space. Today I’m not here to debate the pros/cons of social distancing, but I do want to talk about the benefits of protecting yourself from toxic people in your life. The need to put up a barrier with those who are harmful to your inner peace.  I want to talk about Emotional Distancing.  It Is Ok To Walk Away Are you a people pleaser? Do you have co-dependency issues? Are

Being dumped absolutely ranks up there as one of life's most distressing moments.  Emotions run high and thoughts and energies go into overdrive. When we are young and heartbroken we often say and do things that are impulsive, harmful, and eventually regret.  I have been ghosted, dumped the day before Valentine's Day, and surprised my boyfriend while he was making his famous homemade chocolate pie. (Which was not for me, but was his go-to second date way-to-impress ploy.) I've been played and betrayed. So trust me when I say I understand the associated feelings.   Maybe you are the one ending the relationship. That can be difficult too. People stay in dead end situations from fear of starting over, due to pressure from others to stick it out, or just not wanting to hurt someone. Even when something bad happens, and you know it's time to go, taking that first step is tricky.  And being older doesn't make a break-up any easier. Age doesn't shield us from the traum

Unless you are a complete narcissist, the answer is no.  I started to title this "How To Live A Life Without Regret" and then thought better of it. That would, in fact, be a false advertisement.  A bait and switch tactic if you will. Because anyone clicking on the article would then expect me to tell them how to do something that I certainly haven't been able to do, nor believe is possible.  If you are human and have lived past puberty, then you most certainly have had a regret or two dozen.  Many regrets start as a fork in the road. You have choices. In careers, partners, friendships, lifestyle pursuits. The paths you pick lead you on a journey that no other person but you could take. It's your own personal life trajectory.  Regret is a curious emotion. It basically means you wish you could go back in time and make a different decision because the one you did make didn't turn out quite the way you wanted. But none of us can see into the future, so the outcome was

  With the world watching the Olympics, people are focused on the best of the best. Those who have reached the highest level and have earned the right to a Gold Medal.  In the relationship arena, we are daily flooded with messages that we deserve the best, to never settle, that we are worthy, to demand respect, loyalty and devotion.  And while all of those things may be true, what is missing from that equation is the mirror effect. YOU have to be all those things to the other person.  YOU have to be a Relationship Gold Medal contender.  So what does that look like? Well, honestly, it looks a lot like the road to the actual medal podium. Here is what you need.  Desire No Olympian of any kind woke up the day before tryouts and said: I think today is a good day to start my journey to a gold medal.  Far from it. Most have that desire seared into them at a very young age. They dream about it. It often consumes all their spare time, and then some. It is a driving force.  Now I’m not suggesti

Ok - I get that the first blog post I have written in months should probably not be about drowning rats - yet here we are. And what, you might ask, do rats of any kind have to do with Hope? As it turns out, in the pre-animal rights era of the 1950s, a scientist at John Hopkins did a cruel, yet impactful study on rats. It was called, of all things, the Hope Experiment. There are a few different versions of the experiment, but I’ll try to spare the brutal details with the condensed version. Hang in there with me, there is a lesson to learn. For the first round, rats were put into a bucket of water to see how long they would attempt to tread water to stay alive. The time was about 15 minutes. In the second round, just before they were about to give up, they were rescued. Dried off. Allowed to recoup a bit. Then they were put back into the bucket. This time, they swam longer, harder. They fought on. Endured. Caught a second wind and kept the faith. Do you want to guess the average time the

So my therapist dumped me. Is that even a thing? Don't they have to take some Hippocratic oath to never give up on a patient? Talk about a hit on someone's self-esteem! If my therapist can't deal with me, what does that say about everyone else in my life?  Just to be clear, I'm fine. I mean, yes, it stung a little. It was out of the blue and I wasn't expecting it. We were about halfway into our last appointment when she just said she didn't think this was working. I was caught off guard and not exactly sure what to say. What DO you say when someone wants to break up with you?  First, let me just say it is humbling to even admit I was seeing a therapist. And honestly, it shouldn't be. But I come from a long line of stubborn, independent, and self-sufficient survivors. The thought always ran through my head that a strong will, squared shoulders and a can-do attitude will get you through anything. (That and a daily dose of Jesus.) But sometimes you just need a

I've reached the old and cranky stage of life, so when I started to hear the term 'cancel culture', I wasn't even sure what it meant or if I even cared what it meant. Maybe it was the name of a new boy band, restaurant, or worse, another flash-in-the-pan political stunt to further divide the country.  Turns out, the latter is pretty close to the truth. Only it appears to be gaining momentum instead of losing it, and while there are political laces running through it, I think it's more about pushing limits than an actual agenda or platform. So I decided to crawl out of my self-imposed Covid/Introverted cocoon to take a deeper, and hopefully, more objective look at this social experiment that has gone terribly off the rails. To find what good may have been intended and to root out the useless and damaging elements that have come to define the cause.  So, you ask, what is Cancel Culture? Are we living in a 'cancel culture'? Or are we 'cancelling culture'