By March 16^th, 2020, I retreated to my home with my husband as we entered quarantine-for-all here in the US. We bought our groceries, I got what I needed from my counseling office, and we came home to stay for a good while. I cleared a space in our daughter’s former room to make my home office, and I began my new career in teletherapy.

I also settled deeply into gardening. Now don’t think big; think sweet kitchen garden with 4-6 tomato, pepper, squash, and broccoli plants mixed with basil, zinnias, and marigolds.  Just the previous fall, we had some trees taken down that were threatening our house; they also had become so large that they shaded what had been our backyard garden many years ago. So as March and April presented themselves, I took to preparing these raised garden beds for their new life. My time hoeing the soil, learning more about fertilizing and mulching, and planting these beautiful green seedlings was centering and soothing.

Now in mid-September, my garden is full of restored sweetness. My plants grew well, producing color and vegetables. And I am repeatedly amazed at how the desolation of taking down the trees last fall – a very upsetting day for me – has turned into this beautiful little garden that calls to me each day to come out and enjoy!

Covid Gardens. Many of us have Covid Gardens. People who sell garden supplies and plants have told us how popular gardening has been during this pandemic - and for very good reasons.  In my story, my garden has been a great revival project. I never expected to ever again have enough sun in my yard to grow things. I was clearly wrong. The distress of the tree removal and the tremendous piles of dying brush that lay in our backyard, has – through our efforts – become a welcoming spot on this Earth.

And as my garden has grown, so have I. During this planting and growing season, I have also been busy with the release of the 2^nd edition of Disentangle: When You’ve Lost Your Self in Someone Else.  Offering radio interviews and on-line articles, I have often been asked to discuss how the tools in Disentangle can be applied to these pandemic times – which they easily can. Entanglements are often about trying to control what we cannot control. These pandemic times offer us daily opportunities to sort in this way: what I can and what I cannot control.

“Living Closely - Indefinitely” has become both an assignment and essay for me. In the same way that I have been tending to my garden, I have also been tending to our simple life here together and learning what helps in these restricted times. As of today, I have four suggestions for “Living Closely - Indefinitely”:

                            

                                                Celebrate Together

                                                Honor Separate

                                                Expect Less

                                                Respect Different

I hope you will join me over the next several weeks as I offer a blog on each of these ideas for “Living Closely – Indefinitely.” My Covid Garden has taught me many practical and spiritual things. Living closely has, too.

Now, out I go to those bright pink zinnias and green peppers shining in the sun waiting to be picked.

Prior to flying out of Dulles in Washington, DC

Friday, February 16, 2018

I am not a great flyer. In fact, I can be quite anxious about flying. I don't fly often, but I have learned various ways to manage/not join my anxiety when in an airplane at 30,000+ feet. Sudoku puzzles help me a great deal, and I had one close-at-hand as we settled into our seats for my first trans-Atlantic flight.

With all of the data in front of me about our soon-to-be-flight, something in me shifted from anxiety to joining this great adventure. Recently I have been realizing that the work I have been doing on my own behalf all these years may in fact really have changed my neural pathways, just as neuroscience is telling us. More on that at another time. The point here is that I was not anxious. I was present and ready to be where I was: on an airplane in flight.

Our flight was through the night. So after they served us our late meal, the plane lights were dimmed and we were "put to bed" to have our "airplane sleep," as someone described it to me. I rested in 30-45 minute blocks of time, waking to rearrange myself, drink a little water, and drowse back off.

Sometime late in the night, in some time zone well east of the US and miles above the north Atlantic Ocean, I woke. The plane was silent with its sleepers and device-watchers here-and-there. As I looked out of the window by my seat, I saw a sliver of a moon hanging in a familiar way in the distant sky. I smiled at what a lovely jewel I was seeing. I felt closer to the moon than ever and simultaneously further than ever from all that I know.

Here was this constant object - the moon - holding me in place while I was being catapulted through the sky to a foreign country.

We all share the moon. We all know the moon and its phases. The moon that we see in the US is the same as the one in the UK. We are all on one world. We may have different languages, traditions, governments, but we are connected by the natural world and its wonders.

I appreciated that waning crescent moon that night. I appreciated the way it connected me to the familiar in the midst of the strange. And I appreciated that my mindful presence allowed me to take all of this in.

Today as I write this blog, I Googled what was the moon's stage that night, and here is what it says:

Friday, January 12, 2018
Waning Crescent
Illumination: 18%

On this day the Moon was in a Waning Crescent phase. In this phase the Moon’s illumination is growing smaller each day until the New Moon. During this phase the Moon is getting closer to the Sun as viewed from Earth and the night side of the Moon is facing the Earth with only a small edge of the Moon being illuminated. This phase is best viewed an hour or 2 before the sunrise and can be quite beautiful if you're willing to get up early. It can also be a great time to see the features of the Moon's surface. Along the edge where the illuminated portion meets the dark side, the craters and mountains cast long shadows making them easier to observe with a telescope or binoculars.

What stage is the moon in tonight? Will I get to see it and appreciate it?

Wherever you may be on our Earth, it is good to remember that we all share this same, precious moon and the experience of its presence.

Next: "shapeless without technique"

Codependence Camp, Spring 2017 at Vine Cottage in Natural Bridge, VA

Yes, let it be said that Codependence Camp has happily landed at Vine Cottage on the Forest Oaks Estate in Natural Bridge, VA, USA! After a decade of successful Camps in Abingdon, VA, we have moved to this new location. Like most change, this move - which was prompted by the sale of the house we used all of those years - had its challenges and invited us to practice many of the tools we teach at Camp: flexibility, patience, open-mindedness, creativity, faith, cooperation, and mindfulness.

We have just completed our 22nd Camp which was on Detaching, Energy, Family Influences, and Fun. What a wonderful group of campers, sharing their personal stories as they wish and asking good questions which keep us all on this continuing journey to a Healthy Self.

Yes, that is what Camp is all about: cultivating Your Healthy Self.

Curious about our content? Some of our core work is at my website here. Go to downloads and you can see our little "camp manual" entitled Your Healthy Self: Skills for Working with Codependent Behaviors.

Curious about what else Camp can offer ? Drop me a note through Contact on this website, and I will be glad to answer your questions.


Next Camp: September 29 - October 1, 2017 at Vine Cottage. Topics include Energy, Conflict Resolution, and Grief.

Wild flowers arrive.

My healing room is complete.

All I need is here.

On June 13, 2016 I had total right hip replacement. I had been needing this surgery for a good while. The osteoarthritis in that hip had become "severe" and my physical mobility was tiny.

Now on the healing side of things, I am understanding how much my emotional mobility and health was also affected by that condition, how limited and low my emotional state was. People are telling me how good I look. In talking about that, we are determining that yes, I am more rested now, but also they are clear with me that they saw my stress and unhappiness from my pain and restricted condition.

This is such a living testimony to the importance of remembering that our total health is a product of our physical, emotional, thinking, and spiritual parts.

As my healing progressed, haiku often came to me, capturing these various aspects of my self as I went through my surgery and recovery:

I watch people walk.

Embarrassed by my envy,

I am a cripple.

I have arrived at
Planet Anesthesia.
Letting go. Take off. 

"I feel discouraged."
The nurse smiles at me and says,
"It's just 9am."

He gets me up and

to the bathroom. Benefits

of years together.

 She sleeps on my chest,

her purr radiating down
in my healing bones.

 What is it with shame?

It irrationally keeps 

us from care we need.

 Each day is so still.

Stopping completely brings it

into awareness.

Freed from the walker,

the cane and I proceed on

down the road to strength.

I just want to walk.

I want to walk to the sea

like Mr Gandhi.

 It is a balance
of trust, patience, and action:

healing essentials.

Today, May 18, 2016 at 3pm (ET), my work will be given the opportunity for a national forum thanks to the National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC) here in the US.

Last November they selected my presentation for a webinar entitled Your Healthy Self: Skills for Working with Codependent Behaviors. Those of you familiar with my work know that I created this electronic booklet in the summer of 2015 for the Virginia Summer Institute for Addiction Studies, and it has been available here on my website under Downloads for anyone's use.

Tomorrow I will be offering a 90 minute presentation on this work.To either attend the event or to look at it at a later time, here is the address: http://www.naadac.org/codependantbehaviors.

I have also been busy since this March converting this electronic booklet into a physical book. All year I have wanted to create what I am calling Nancy's "little book" which you can see above. As I am saying, it reads in 30 minutes and takes years to work. The book is $10.00 and is only available through me. I have not figured out how to move it out further yet, but if you are interested in a copy or more, let me know through this website and we will see what is possible.

The book, whether electronic or paper, is to be both quick reference/quick study and fun in its simultaneously introductory and comprehensive ways. I believe that cultivating our healthy self can be the same: both studied and fun.

I hope you will take a look at my "little book" in any of these ways - the webinar, this website, the paper book - and see what may be useful for you.

A neighborhood dog

barks in the distance as I

re-visit that day.

*

Her name slipped out of

my mouth like she is still here

waiting at the door.

*

I realize you're

still here and always will be.

These grounds are your home.

*

Haiku are an active current writing form for me. I am blessed with a number of them coming to me here-and-there. I have mentioned this in my blog before.

I have decided to at least once-a-week post one or two haiku for you. In the same way that Instagram gives us an complete picture of a moment in time, haiku can do the same. So this is my version of an Instagram accounting.

Each haiku I choose to post will hopefully be free-standing and not need my further comments. I am selecting them, because they convey important pieces of my recovery, important ways for me to think, feel, sense, and experience the world, important messages that create a foundation for my healthy self - ever in my consideration.

Amazon does not

sell the things that I need most:

time and space for self.

*

I like the way I

experience the world with

presence not device.

*

I am glad that I send Christmas cards. Each year, though, I dread the work that I put into those cards. I can't just sign one and mail it. I want to pick a card that I think is right for the person(s) receiving the card and add at least some sort of special note on it with an update or personal comment to them. As the holidays go on and cards are sent and others arrive here at the house, I bask in the notes, colors, and contact with people in our life. I arrange the incoming cards around the doorway between our living room and dining room, and they will stay there for months, showering us with the messages sent.

This year I had a few cards to write after Christmas Day. I decided there was no rule against that and settled myself again into the thoughts and feelings of that writing. It was a pleasure. As I was writing one of those cards, I was wishing them Blessings and started to talk about Blessings all around us. I caught myself, realizing I did not have to give them a mini-blog on my experiences with Blessings there on their Christmas card. My wishes for them were enough.

But the desire to comment on Blessings remains, and I bring it here - more appropriately - to my blog to share with you, my Christmas card to you. No, my thoughts here are not new, but I believe it is important to remind our self that Blessings are around us every day in all sorts of forms and all sorts of sizes.

It is easy to think of Blessings as those which are large and make a significant difference in life or death, in health or disease, in marriage or divorce. These are true and important Blessings. So is food on our table and warmth in our homes and the beds we sleep in. But Blessings are also in small, unexpected packages: the kindness of a stranger, sunlight coming in a window, a found object that delights, being remembered in some way, remembering someone else in some way, laughing, feeling the breeze on your face.

Two days ago - on the first day of this New Year - my husband and I were out walking Eddie, the black lab. As we were going by one of my flower beds, I couldn't believe what I was seeing in one of the flower pots there among the brown leaves: A hyacinth was blooming! It is pink and has three fully formed plants. My brain at first told me it was an artificial flower. I have no artificial flowers in the yard, but my brain did not think it was possible for it to be real. And it is. A small, beautiful Blessing as we enter the dead of winter.

The hard frosts are coming this week we are told. So I have brought the hyacinth in and have it on our kitchen table to enjoy. Every time I walk by it, I can smell it wonderful fragrance, and I marvel at this most special gift.

Codependence Camp - October, 2015

Virginia Counselors' Associations Annual Conterence - 2015

This fall has been rich in Opportunities for me, opportunities of various sorts.

Our October Codependence Camp was full of wonderful opportunities to work together on our self-growth. Studying the work of Rick Hanson, we used material in Buddha's Brain to learn more about how to cultivate our healthy self through calming and centering.

In November, I presented at the Virginia Counselors' Associations Annual  Conference. Full of opportunities for learning and networking, I also used it as an opportunity to create a new presentation working with the material in My Life as a Border Collie: "The Use of Story-Telling and Metaphor to Work with Codependent Behaviors." Metaphor and story-telling can teach us quickly and memorably, and I was delighted to share tales and lessons from that book with an informed and engaged audience. Soon my notes from that presentation will be available to you at this website under Downloads.

These have been professional and creative opportunities which I have enjoyed and been inspired by. And it is important to also note all of the Opportunities I am given daily to work my program. Just living in this world and with our self, we are moment-by-moment given opportunities to act/react in the same old ways or to do something different. We can worry and fret or we can be in the present moment. We can complain about someone taking advantage of us or we can set boundaries with them. We can keep hoping things will be different or we can choose to see what is.

As we move into the holidays with more pressures on us to get things done and more contact with family and friends, these Opportunities will surely be there for us to respond to. If I can enter this season with healthy self awareness, moment-by-moment, and with my intentions to respond not react, I believe that when the Opportunities present themselves, I will have a good chance of acting and living out of my healthy self.

And if I do not like how I handled a particular Opportunity, I know that the next one is not far behind and will once again give me the chance to work my program toward increase health and peace.

My time in Williamsburg at the Virginia Summer Institute for Addiction Studies was wonderful: excellent sessions in which I learned a great deal and inspiring colleagues and conversations. A special thank-you to all who attended my session and participated in the inauguration of Your Healthy Self, my new electronic board book available here at my website under Downloads.

Whether I am working with my clients, teaching others, or working with my self, I am over-and-over brought back to the basic importance of mindfulness in my life. More and more I understand that the work I am doing is about this development of a healthy self, and without the awareness and ability to quiet my self and come to the present moment, I am not able to connect with my self in the ways that help my growth.

Haiku continue to come to me these days. They are such a magical delight - their presence in my life - and they often express succinctly my experiences. Here are several I choose to share with you now.

Always moving on

with so much goodness waiting

to be noticed now.

Life gives me the chance

to catch up with my sweet self

and still I push on.

Summer's orchestra
is all coming together
with rich sights and sounds

Each of us have a present moment right now.

I have a moment.

Here and now invites me to 

notice and attend. 

Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook

Camille Pissarro

1984/1985

The Art Institute of Chicago

The time has come for me to return to my blog and to return to the Virginia Summer Institute for Addiction Studies in Williamsburg this coming week - July 13-15, 2015 - http://www.vsias.org/. I am very fond of this conference. I have learned a great deal there and have been invited to present several times. I will be presenting at VSIAS this Tuesday, July 14th.

My session is entitled, "Your Healthy Self: Skills for Working with Codependent Behaviors." The presentation is a new one, and the theme of the conference invited us to use technology in our work.

This invitation prompted me to create a power point book on this topic of codependency. It reminds me of the board books we enjoyed as children. The exciting news for me is that it is available to you and anyone here on my website. It takes about 30 minutes to read, and as I add, years to work. It is under the Downloads tab which is a new feature on my website. I want to be able to share more of my presentations with you.

So check out my downloads. There are four of them now. I will be adding more from work I have done over the past 10 years. I am glad to pass them out into the world and stimulate conversation and growth on this important topic: Your Healthy Self.