I have been thinking about some of the lessons of Pompeii lately. About what can disappear in an instant and what might persist long after we’re gone. About the legacies we leave as individuals, as communities, as cultures. Sometimes these questions feel abstract and sometimes very close to home.

When my son was little he used to get angry listening to the radio in the car — “Why are ALL the songs about LOVE?!” Love is a Battlefield. All You Need is Love. Endless Love. Tainted Love. Baby Love. Modern Love. Stupid Love. Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Is This Love? What’s Love Got to Do With It? There are many different kinds of love, and recently I was thinking about how to describe the “love” I feel during sessions with clients. It’s not romantic love, of course. It’s powerful and yet soft, coming from me and also through me. It’s closely related to “compassion,” but even that feels like just one aspect of it. While I don’t say “I love you” to my clients, I do love them, in this way. There just isn’t quite the right word for it.*

How are you holding up so far this holiday season? There are always reasons to celebrate and much to be grateful for, and yet the winter holidays bring a lot of visible and invisible challenges. Perhaps you have some emotional wounds that tend to get activated this time of year -- expectations and struggles around family, money, relationships, work, food, alcohol, religion, health, social engagements, consumerism, winter weather ... any I missed?

As an experiment for today, why not choose to look at a person or situation through a particular lens? At work, school, the supermarket, the subway ... what if you saw everyone as a child?