Barbara Brooks created Flamingo Strategies LLC to help clients stand up and stand out, through telling and sharing their stories of impact and purpose.
Hacking Away at Happiness is her blog.
I bumbled around looking for a match, but frustration set in. The heads were too boxy. The legs too short. Some pups were born too early. Others already were taken.
The central issues of our lives, from falling in love to facing death, require an ability to surrender that often eludes us.
Losing Ruby connects me to anyone who has ever experienced loss. And anyone who ever will. So hold your pets close and your humans even closer. And don’t give up on love.
Today is just another day. To wag more and bark less. To express our gratitude. To live as though we could die at any minute.
If staying over our skis is a metaphor for living in the present, how can we both stay over our skis and let something unknown and risky pull us along?
I was drawn to the book because of my marital redundancy. What I learned is that we all have three marriages. At the same time. Welcome to the new polyamory!
When I was an insatiable child, my mother would say “Greedy, greedy, makes a hungry puppy.” I hated that. But now I know this: “Busy, busy, makes a tired monkey.”
Going on so many dates may seem like torture. But it also creates compassion. For myself, and for the other guy.
I returned to the hot springs. I knew there was more to see. And to say. Especially about getting old. And learning to love the skin I’m in.
This Independence Day I won’t lie on my back in the sand behind the Surfside Community Center—yes that Surfside—as I did as a child. But I’m learning to be free.
Recent vitrectomy surgery has blurred my vision, so I’ve been living more so than usual in my head. It’s easier to write than to read. But I’ll be back!
Madame Bovary ate arsenic and died in agony. Anna Karenina threw herself under a train. I may feel like hell right now, but I’m not giving up on love.
As I dipped from pond-to-pond, or floated on my back, I forgot all about the male gaze. And the female gaze. Instead, I gazed inward.
Why wait until a doctor tells us our time is limited? Our time already is limited! We can do these things now.
Radical hospitality means honoring the truth of all that we cannot anticipate and control, and all that arrives unexpected or uninvited. I guess that includes cancer.
I once dated a man who carried list of emotions in his pocket. I wore mine on my sleeve—and my list was fractionally short—so our relationship didn’t last long.
If heartbreak is inevitable and unescapable, as the poet philosopher David Whyte says, perhaps we should make friends with it. But how?
Whether our latest trench is made of heavy, mashed-potatoes snow—or of our own negative thinking—here are a few ways we might find ease.
In boxing, to pull a punch is to hit less hard than one can. In writing, it’s to be less truthful. So, friends, I’ve hit the pandemic wall. And I’ve got to get a handle on this.
I write this blog about nothing in hopes it gives us something. It’s a place where we can sort and order our pangs and longings. It connects us to each other. That’s not nothing—is it?
