Musings | Inner Voice Coaching

You Don’t Need a Diagnosis to Need Help

On this family vacation, we went off the beaten path, through icy waters and deep into breathtaking beauty. Photo credit: Brian Deutsch “I’ve worked with people with a variety of communication and cognitive disorders secondary to a variety of diagnoses,[...]

Writing that Inspired Me, End of Winter

I’m thinking of words that fueled me over the winter on this creative journey called Life. In no particular order: The Sports Page: Yes, the real sports page in your newspaper. This is some of my favorite writing in our[...]

Buds

First, I look at the colors – cream fringed with pink; deep scarlet; and then, gold, peach and salmon, like a sunset. I lean forward to breathe in the fragrance of each one. If I smell only blank air from[...]

Walls

Between sessions at a conference in Canada last week, a fellow attendee told me that if Donald Trump is elected president of the USA they plan to build a wall. Otherwise, I felt quite welcome on my recent trip[...]

Is it Time to Rest Yet?

Maybe it’s because it was January, the month of new starts, or maybe it was a rebound effect from the excesses of the holidays. But I noticed a trend. For a full week, nearly all of my clients cited an[...]

Breaking and Making Habits – My Summer Book Review

When I was a newly minted speech pathologist working at UVA Health Sciences Center, my friend, John Caine, chastised me for my habit of reading several books at once. “Oh, Melissa,” he shook his head. “You should always read just[...]

Melissa
July 20, 2015

Paths

When I returned to paid work after 12 years as a stay-at-home mom, I was flabbergasted at how daunting the process of switching gears was. What was I getting myself into? What was the “right” path? I had a hard[...]

Melissa
September 25, 2014

The Best Gift

“Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn. When my son, Douglas, was four, his preschool teacher dropped a nugget of gold in my lap that[...]

Melissa
July 24, 2014

A Happy Habit

How do you respond when someone shares good news with you? Your response might predict the longevity and happiness of your relationship. At The Habits of Happy People, a recent conference presented by Jaime Kurtz, Ph.D, I gathered[...]

Melissa
July 24, 2014

GOOOAAL!

In our household, we are feeling an empty spot that was once filled by World Cup Football – soccer to us Americans. And no wonder. Coverage for the once-every-four years tournament ran from Thursday, June 12th until the finals, Sunday,[...]