Words from the Heart

  After "grounding" this past year, 2025 has me dancing! This will be interesting, since I am trying to find reasons to dance in the year ahead. Usually, people dance when they are happy, but in doing some research - I always research my words - I found there are dances for when you aren't overjoyed with what is happening in the world!  For example, the tarantella was an original traditional dance related to being bitten by a tarantula! According to a video on the history of this dance, it was believed it was a condition that was caused by being bitten by a spider and by dancing the venom of the spider was removed.  Other Indigenous dances are done for healing sadness, anger, confusion, and despair.  Dancing does more for us than simply expressing our emotions. When we dance, we improve our overall health, we produce endorphins, which help us to balance our emotions, we improve brain function, breathing, and much more. While we certainly can dance by ourselves, danc...

Today, I have the pleasure of sharing my blog with author, Lynda Faye Schmidt .  Her newest book, The Holding is being released today, so we are celebrating with this blog post. I want to thank Lynda for her words and for the courage to share herself with the readers. I would also like to thank her publisher, Anne O'Connell for the opportunity to read and review The Holding .   There Can Be Miracles: The power of faith  by Lynda Faye Schmidt The world is weary, the energy is heavy, two years later and Covid still a force to be reckoned with. Fear, lockdowns, restrictions, illness and death have taken a toll on everyone across the globe in some form or another. It can be easy to get caught up in the negativity when it seems to come at us from every tv channel, newspaper, and social media platform. But we don’t have to. We have a choice how we respond to life’s challenges. In my opinion, our attitude, beliefs, mind-set and faith, all fall under a similar umbrella. They are...

  In The Holding , author Lynda Faye Schmidt masterfully weaves together a story of a father's love and his daughter's struggle with childhood trauma.   Cate Henderson, the protagonist of this novel, struggles from childhood with the after-effects of childhood sexual abuse, bullying and dysfunctional relationships. However, throughout her life, her anchor - her rock, is her father whose love is unconditional and constant. Even when she cannot see her worth, her father always does. What I found in this novel was that Lynda has the ability to talk about the tough subjects of abuse - in all its various forms - while creating a story woven with hope and healing.  The character, Cate, uses a journal to keep her dark secrets as well as her dreams and hopes. Journaling has been well documented as a means of healing from all forms of illness, addiction, abuse, and mental issues. This novel gives a powerful example of this. I highly recommend this book because of its message ...