We’ve all heard this phrase before, “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” It was very popular in the 1990s and continues to inspire people today. It has inspired millions of people to do the thing that we’re discussing this month—perform acts of caring. According to Wikipedia,…
Blog & Monthly Article
A Moment of Connection
In this month’s article for the Susan Jeffers newsletter, we are talking about the transformative power of doing something caring. An act of caring, whether we are the giver, receiver, or a bystander, enhances us spiritually and can connect us to the world. In Dare to Connect, Susan related the…
A Bit More About ‘Shoulds’
When searching for meaning in your life, it’s hard not to succumb to the ‘shoulds.’ When we use should we aren’t taking responsibility for our decisions, we are letting others dictate what is important to us. If you are familiar with Susan’s Pain-to-Power Vocabulary list, ‘should’ is matched up with…
Transcending Fate
One of Susan’s heroes was Viktor Frankl, influential psychologist and Holocaust survivor. As we talk about finding meaning and purpose in our lives this month, this passage from Embracing Uncertainty and from Frankl’s seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning, help us to really understand how meaning can affect our lives…
Aging as a Metaphor
Our culture is hard on people who are no longer young. We’re criticized for aging—a normal process that happens to everybody! That’s why Susan wanted to create a new age category, Timeless. She wrote about it in an early article (pre-Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway) called, “A New…
It’s Never Too Late to Be Timeless
This month we’re talking about being Timeless—not young, not elderly, not even middle-aged. Timeless describes those of us who are vibrant, curious, sexy, healthy, and adventuresome—characteristics usually associated with youthfulness—who are past a certain age. In the 2015 movie, Hello, My Name is Doris, actress Sally Field (who might just…
Am I Right, Am I Wrong? Maybe!
In these tumultuous times, it’s hard not to be drawn into arguments with know-it-alls. Especially on social media where people feel they can attack with impunity, while hiding behind their user ID. We can’t help but reply in kind because it is easier to be know-it-alls, to be assured and…
Striving for the Language of Love
“When do we use an exclamation point and when do we use a question mark?” John Balzar, Los Angeles Times The world is in a divisive place right now—not that it has ever really been a place of harmony. However, the acrimony and partisan-ness seems to have reached epic proportions.…
From Pain to Power with Self-Respect
One of Susan’s very first lessons in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway is the Pain-to-Power continuum. On the left side is Pain. This is when fear makes us feel helpless, depressed, stuck. On the right side is Power. This is when we have power over our fear and…
The Seeds of Self-Respect
When we have self-respect we treat ourselves better and also treat those around us better. In Dare to Connect, Susan wrote about making real connections with other people—without our masks, without our acts—meeting people just as we are. But it is hard to meet people who will accept us for…