Satisfaction Realty Real Estate Blog

“There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human—in not having to be just happy or just sad- in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.” ~C. JoyBell C. “I just feel like it’s never ending… like I should be more over it by now,” my friend says, her eyes looking down at her mug of tea. She lost a loved one three years ago in tragic circumstances. Her words make me sad, and there are layers to my sadness: I’m sad for her loss, her grief, for...

“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke I was eight years old when my father and I somehow ended up in a heated, verbal struggle. I don’t remember what we were fighting about, but I remember that he was yelling at me. I already knew by then that my father didn’t deal well with anger. It wasn’t uncommon for him to explode into...

“I know, things are getting tougher when I can’t get the top off the bottom of the barrel.” ~Jesse Michaels No one thought I was going to live to see twenty. Including me. In fact, I vividly remember telling my father that it would be miraculous if I saw twenty-five. It wasn’t emotional. It was simply a statement of fact. And yet here I am—mid-thirties, wife, daughter, one on the way, house, job, sense of purpose. What happened? I was one of those kids with questions. Big questions. “What...

“It’s also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that’s sitting right here right now…with its aches and its pleasures…is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.” ~Pema Chodron Many people like to think of grief as an emotional experience. It’s something that dominates your internal, emotional space, and that’s it. But it doesn’t take long when you’re in the thick of grief to experience grief that isn’t emotional...

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”  ~Lao Tzu About a year ago, I came across an e-course titled “Find Your Purpose in 15 Minutes.” I found this course during a time when purpose was something I was actively looking for. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure what to do next, and without anything to work toward I was looking for a new motivation to pull me forward. The e-course I stumbled upon represents a society increasingly concerned with fulfilling...

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” ~Richard Bach I’d wanted to visit Alaska nearly my entire life. I’d always wanted to see the vast landscape, majestic scenery, and awesome wildlife. So as a single, middle-aged mom with two boys aged fourteen and twelve, we went. It was going to be an epic trip—travel from our home in the Midwest to Anchorage, a few days to Denali and back, then down to the coast and...

“Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.” ~Danielle Orner For too long, I felt myself pulled between two shores of my identity. On one side was my yoga teacher, meditator, healer identity—my tender side. On the other side was my activist, change-maker role—my fierce side. I always felt like I was too tender for some and too fierce for others. It made me feel like I didn’t fit in anywhere. Definitely the soft-hearted...

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our hearts, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh Back in 2001, I was a freshman in college, and my saving grace from anxiety was a yoga class. More specifically, it was the most glorious of poses we call savasana that kept me sane. For those unfamiliar, savasana—or corpse pose—is a pose of surrender and noticing thoughts and sensations without...

“What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” ~Haruki Murakami What do you do when just can’t do it anymore? When the pain is too much? The discouragement is too much? The hoping and trying are too much? It’s not that you haven’t tried. You’ve been brave. You’ve been persistent. You’ve been soldiering on through hurt that other people don’t understand. It’s that you’re feeling broken from the trying. That’s how I felt when my husband died of stomach cancer....

“The sage perspective accepts every outcome and circumstance as an opportunity.” ~Shirzad Chamine No doubt you’re familiar with paranoia. In the modern world, it’s hard not to be. And as Joseph Heller wrote, just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not after you. But there is another way to look at the world. What if you could see every situation in your life as a positive conspiracy, aimed at aligning you with your highest good? This might seem outlandish, but it’s...