It’s t-minus two weeks until the big day, which means, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, the pace of most of our already hectic lives is approaching warp speed. Schedules packed, to-do lists long and growing, rest and patience harder to come by than daylight during your evening commute. Good news: you can still boost your immunity against holiday overwhelm. It’s a simple procedure. Just take in the good. That’s it. No matter the level of holiday hyperactivity around you, simply notice the good. Early and often, for about 30 seconds each time. This inoculation against holiday overwhelm costs nothing and the people around you don’t even have to buy into it – or even know you’re doing it – for it to be effective. (Bonus: they’re likely to benefit from your good-seeking, whether they’re aware of it or not.) Stuck in the express lane at the grocery behind someone. . . .

I used to think I had a problem with bridges. Then I learned that we can talk ourselves into panic when we’re safe and into calm when we’re in real danger. I live in Pennsylvania, close to Delaware, where I can easily enjoy proximity to tax-free shopping, Philadelphia, and my beloved Jersey shore. I love my view of the bridge to New Jersey from my neighborhood and the opportunities to proclaim, “I can see New Jersey from my windshield,” throughout my area. So it’s ironic that I made crossing the bridge to New Jersey a source of so much anxiety for so long. Anxiety Amid Calm I have no clue what prompted it, but after several years of driving to the shore every weekend for work, I started to become anxious as I crossed the bridge, but only on the way home. I was never truly unsafe on the bridge, but the. . . .

I suspect that, as a kid, I was a little excited about Labor Day, the start of the school year and time to reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen all summer. When I was a corporate drone in workplaces so intense I noticed little of the world outside of the office, I barely had the energy to notice, let alone celebrate, Labor Day As a teacher with the luxury of spending the whole summer at my beloved Jersey shore, Labor Day weekend was not a happy time. I cried so hard – sobbing, ugly cry – during the entire 75-mile drive home one year, I’m still not sure how I made it safely across the Delaware River. Labor Day was different this year. In the words of the prophet story teller Jimmy Buffett, “it’s been quite a summer.” After spending the last three months caring for my mom through her final. . . .