SANDY’S WISDOM #66: STOP GOING TO THE OCEAN AND BEING MAD AT IT BECAUSE IT ISN’T FRESH WATER! Recently, I saw an old friend. Having spoken over the years, I had a picture (otherwise known as a box) in my mind of what he was like and how connected our friendship is. It was different. […]

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One of the greatest gifts you can give another person is to feel heard. Few children or adults feel heard. Where did we learn to be more interested in ourselves than other people? John Gray in his book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, talks about the difference between mens and women’s listening […]

I was walking on the beach one day with Leo Buscaglia. Leo was the USC professor who gained attention by creating a class called, “LOVE” which he taught for free because the school thought it was a stupid idea. His class was always packed to the gills with a sizable waiting list. Appropriately, Leo wrote […]

It was nighttime when my Vietnamese friend, Janet, insisted I go to dinner with her because my family dinner had been cancelled due to illness. I chose Zupas, Meridian. We started down the service line and I started my usual, “Hi! My name’s Sandy, what’s yours?” The first server, who turned out to be the […]

Today, I am celebrating being on this earth for 82 years! Having had open heart surgery in 2015, I call this span of my life my “Extended Visa!” It hasn’t all been easy, (whose life has been?) My commitment at this point is to share the things I learned over the years, hoping that a […]

Perspective is how you see things. Is your perspective about yourself based on outside features of the quality of your being, which is the outside of you? If we could look into a crystal ball and see a picture of the way you would like to be, what would you see in your picture? Would […]

Perspective is HOW you see things. How you see things determines the quality of your life. Your perspective changes over time as you literally see things differently. If you were walking down the street and someone started pushing you from behind, your tendency would be to get angry very quickly. If you turned around, only […]

At almost 82 years old (can you believe it?) I will tell you a very simple yet insanely difficult concept to remember: SOME PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU, SOME CANNOT! I’m not talking about aliens here, I’m talking about, due to a person’s past experience, they are able or not able to view you as you […]

When I’ve taught life skills classes, one of the most difficult concepts for people to accept is that no one makes you angry or hurts your feelings. You are always at choice with what how you respond to another person. “You make me so angry!” a parent tells a child. Think about how much power […]

A perfectionist is constantly caught up in a “not good enough” cycle, so nothing they do is regarded by them as a personal achievement. So many times, over my 81+ years of life, I’ve thrown sincere compliments off walls of personal judgment. Another type of person who fits the “not good enough” cycle is someone […]