Personal Growth Planet Blog

I’m 1 week ahead as my visiting father departs my home and my mother-in-law arrives for a visit. I bid farewell and welcome this flurry of guests.

Now, I’m 24 years in the past, with friends at a high school show choir performance. We are singing, dancing and having a great time together.

Next, I am a year from now at the beach with my husband and sons. The ocean swells and we play together in the surf and the sand.

All of that time travel happened for me in the span of about 15 minutes (more or less).

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new”- Albert Einstein

No matter how many wise and witty quotes I read about the value– even the necessity– of making mistakes in life, it’s still uncomfortable and sometimes painful for me when they happen.

There have got to be very few people in this world who actually enjoy making mistakes.

Even the most laid-back, easy-going souls among us probably cringe when they say the “wrong” thing, drop a plate full of food on someone’s white carpeting, forget an important deadline or some other blunder among the millions of possible blunders a person could make.

You can ask my kids– I really don’t like clutter. I get all squirrely and irritable when the piles of books, papers, electronics, toys or whatever get too high and are spread too widely throughout the house.

I’ll be the first one to admit that it’s not just their stuff that adds to the feeling I get of being stuffed in to a space with too many things out and about.

When I reach my clutter breaking point, I generally huff around a bit barking out calls for tidiness and picking up after ourselves.

Pretty much every one of us has some (or many) old wounds that we carry around. Long ago, or more recently, we were “wronged” or hurt in some way and we just can’t seem to get over it.

Forgiveness is one very effective and powerful way to heal those wounds…or so we’ve probably been told.

The trouble with forgiveness is it is such a loaded concept!

There’s a definite connotation that posits forgiveness as the “right” or compassionate thing to do for another person. Religious teachings might have helped cement this self-less understanding of forgiving in your mind; they have for me.

Have you ever wished that you could take a particularly painful memory from your past and simply erase it?

I have a few (or more) memories that, at times, I would love to be rid of. These are the images, feelings and beliefs related to events in my past that crop up and seem to ruin my whole day, week, month or even years.

Recently, I watched the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” It tells the story of a man and woman who met, fell in love, argued, made love, argued some more and then broke up.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a deep and cleansing cry. It can shake things up and clear out all of that stuff that each of us needlessly carries around.

As adults, many of us don’t give ourselves permission to cry.

Somewhere along the line the message was made known that crying is weak and “for babies.” This is especially the case for boys and men. But girls and women also receive similar messages.

We are subtly or overtly told that there is no room for crying in a successful, got-it-all-together kind of life.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

I tend to get really stressed out around the holidays. And I often can’t figure out exactly why.

Yes, I have extra shopping to do, baking, wrapping and traveling added to my already busy schedule. But still, my levels of tightness and tension don’t seem to match even those added activities and responsibilities.

Earlier this week, as I laid in a restorative yoga pose designed to open up my chest, I finally understood.

The ghosts of my Christmases past were rattling chains– and me.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

A young boy struggles to deal with his parents' divorce, the introduction of a new person-- his mother's boyfriend-- into his life, feeling left out and ignored by his older sister and an overall sense of loneliness.

This not-so-unusual scenario is the stage upon which the movie version of the beloved children's book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is set.

While the book hints at the difficulties the pre-pubescent Max is going through, the movie version (titled the same) expands and brings them to a level that can be downright uncomfortable for viewers.

The wild things that Max encounters after he sails off to another land personify his seemingly out of control emotions.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

“…It’s just emotions taking me over…” sang the popular 1970s pop group the Bee Gees.

I bet that just about every one of us has experienced a wave of emotions that seemed to literally take over.

It might have been fear or panic so intense that nothing else going on could be perceived. Or it could have been a surge of pleasure or happiness.

Our feelings can be pervasive. They can also make us sick or, conversely, support and promote health and well-being.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Have you ever felt so angry, you could hardly see straight? Or maybe you were overwhelmed by fear and felt closed off and small inside. Perhaps, your brain seemed in a fog– it was next to impossible for you to think clearly….

We’ve all been there.

Whether it’s feeling mad, sad, afraid or even spacey, sometimes it seems as if we are stuck in particular emotions or a certain mood and we just can’t figure out a way to move through it and release.

Have you ever tried yoga in cases like this?