Discover how to find joy after loss in this heartfelt Journey from Grief to Healing episode. Through poetry and reflection, learn how childlike wonder and connection with others can open the door to happiness again.
Month: June 2025
Healthy Foods: Rooibos Tea
Red Gold: The Underrated Power of Rooibos Tea
It’s caffeine-free, earthy-sweet, and quietly working overtime for your skin, bones, and heart. Rooibos might just be the hero you didn’t know you needed. Rooibos tea is packed with antioxidants and essential minerals. Discover four surprising health perks of this South African gem.
🌱 4 Health Benefits:
- Boosts skin health with anti-inflammatory compounds
- Supports strong bones with calcium and manganese
- Balances blood sugar levels naturally
- Promotes heart health without caffeine
Healthy Tips: Hibiscus Tea
The Ruby Brew: Why Hibiscus Tea Is Your Heart’s New BFF
It’s tart, it’s pretty, and it’s packing more antioxidants than a superhero smoothie. Hibiscus tea is your heart-health hero in a teacup. From lowering blood pressure to fighting free radicals, here are four science-backed reasons to make hibiscus tea a daily ritual.
🌱 4 Health Benefits:
- Lowers blood pressure naturally
- Rich in antioxidants that fight cellular aging
- Supports liver function and detox
- May help lower bad cholesterol (LDL)
The Golden Gaslight Awards: Honoring Ego, Insecurity, and Really Loud Cars
Forget the Oscars. Forget the Emmys. These awards celebrate the unsung heroes of self-importance—the ones who need a parade for owning a yacht-sized trophy wife or casually dropping their PhD into your coffee.
You can tell how comfortable and self assured a person is with themselves by observing the stuff they have around them. If they need props, trophies, and other symbols of wealth, prestiege, or power you can almost see the little boy or the little girl inside them saying, “Please notice me, I’m important.”
Perhaps we should have a a major award ceremony for people who have the best symbols for their success in personality. I’ll call it The Golden Gaslight Awards. Here the categories . Each winner will get a trophy large enough to make him/her feel even more important.
!. Best trophy wife or girlfriend (Presented to male at least 20 years older than his wife or girlfriend)
2. Best toyboy.(Same requirements as Best Trophy Wife or Girlfriend except the award is presented to a female at least 25 years older than her toyboy)
3. Most popular influencer. (Presented to a person who has over a million followers but makes no money from their Internet fame and still lives with and is supported by parents.
4, Most prestigious academic degrees (Presented to the person who begins every conversation by saying, “I have a Phd).
5. Most Obvious Midlife Crisis Vehicle (Presented to the driver of the loudest, least practical car that screams, “I’m totally fine, why do you ask?”)
6. Excellence in Name-Dropping (Awarded to the person who can work a celebrity, Ivy League, or CEO mention into any conversation—including funerals.)
7. Lifetime Achievement in Humblebragging (“It’s exhausting being this amazing… but someone has to do it.”)
8. Best Curated Bookshelf for Zoom Calls (Given to the person whose unread copy of Ulysses has seen more screen time than they have.)
9. Outstanding Performance in Pretending They Don’t Care About Awards (The irony trophy, of course. Made of recycled ego and polished with denial.)
In the end, remember: true confidence doesn’t need a trophy—’But hey, if you must show off, at least polish your ego before you put it on display.”
Writer’s Prompt: Sage Smoke and Smart Mouths: Meet the Crystal-Waving, Skull-Cracking Queen of Noir
Forget hardboiled—this dame’s been pressure-cooked. Our new-age noir detective doesn’t just read tarot between takedowns; she’ll out-snark Mike Hammer while staging a chakra realignment. Mystics, murderers, moon cycles—nobody’s safe.
Writing Prompt Example:
Her name was Astra Vellum, and if her words didn’t cut you, her obsidian knife would. She lit a bundle of sage in one hand while flicking off a stalker with the other—multi-tasking was a survival skill in her business. A client had just walked in reeking of guilt and dollar-store cologne. “Let me guess,” she said, without looking up from her moon phase calendar. “You lost something. Maybe your wife. Maybe your morals. Maybe both.”
3 Questions to Help You Dive Deeper:
- What happens when ancient intuition collides with modern crime?
- How do you balance grit and glitter when your protagonist reads auras and criminal records?
- Can a character be both spiritual and savage without becoming a cliché—or is that the point?
Light for the Journey: Write Like Jazz: Let the Silence Speak
Writing is the same as music. It’s in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don’t play is as important as what you do say. ~ Robert Creeley
Good writing doesn’t shout—it listens, bends, and breathes. Like a jazz solo, the magic is often found in the pause before the next phrase, the subtle shift of tone, the line that almost breaks but doesn’t. Writing that moves us is rarely loud—it’s honest, artful, and alive with what’s left unspoken.
Sometimes ~ Poem by Thich Nhat Hhan
Sometimes
Thich Nhat Hhan
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
Sometimes, the greatest act of love is simply to be present. Thich Nhat Hanh’s words remind us that healing doesn’t always require answers or actions—only a gentle, open-hearted witness to suffering and joy alike. In a world that urges us to fix, explain, or escape, this poem invites us to just be—softly, silently, and fully.
Healthy Foods: Peppermint Tea
Mint Condition: Peppermint Tea That’ll Clear Your Mind and Your Sinuses
If your brain’s foggy and your gut’s grumbly, this minty miracle might be your new best friend. Peppermint tea doesn’t just refresh—it revives. Explore four powerful reasons peppermint tea belongs in your daily routine—from digestive help to mental clarity and beyond.
🌱 4 Health Benefits:
- Relieves indigestion and bloating
- Clears nasal congestion and eases breathing
- Boosts mental alertness and focus
- Soothes headaches and muscle tension
Healthy Tips: What to Say (and What Not to Say)
“Discover the dos and don’ts of supporting someone with an eating disorder, with scripts and research-backed strategies that foster trust, not shame. “I wish I looked like you.” “Just eat something.” “You’re too thin.” Words meant to help often sting the most. Learn how to speak supportively—and when silence is the better choice. is the better choice.
It’s Always 5 O’Clock Somewhere—Especially in a World This Uptight
You don’t need a cocktail to realize society’s acting like it’s been on a three-week bender of outrage. Maybe what we need isn’t more judgment—but a universal, all-day happy hour of empathy, grace, and chill the heck out.
I don’t consume alcohol. Yet, I think contemporary Society is in need of 5 o’clock somewhere. People go around angry. People accuse other people of being evil. People rush to judgment without understanding the issues. People get angry because other people are different from them. They stay angry with them, even if they have never interacted with them. Many of the angry people I see on television are those who profess to follow someone who said, “do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.” That sounds almost masochistic based on many of the actions and spoken words filling the airwaves. Yes, it’s time for 5 o’clock somewhere, anywhere, at every moment.
- If empathy were served in a shot glass, would society still chase it with bitterness?
- What would happen if we replaced social media outrage with a “Do Unto Others” group hug and an herbal mocktail?
- Could the Golden Rule use a modern remix—maybe something like, “Tweet others as you’d want to be tweeted”?
