What are you most proud of in your life? In 1994, after another crisis was brought on by drinking, I made the decision to quit one day (or one minute) at a time. I acknowledged my need for support and continued to actively participate. I walked through depression, anxiety and faced my demons. I learned …
How do you practice self-care? A necessity in life. When I find myself depressed or anxious, I look back at the prior weeks. What was I thinking about? Where was my focus? Never fails. I find that my thoughts were negative or I was focused on problems. There have been studies done on the power …
Do you remember life before the internet? The Good ole days! I know when I was growing up, we spent every moment we could playing outside. In the summer and after school, we played kick the can, kickball, hide and seek and organized a talent show for the neighborhood parents. We made forts in the …
What does freedom mean to you? Freedom is making the choice to live authentically. There will always be people who: Don't wish you well. They might even hope you fail. Want you to live in their perceived idea of who you are. Don't support your decisions or accept who you are. See the worst in …
What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness? I had a conversation with a girl today. It went something like this. You can choose to focus on what you don't have or make the most of this moment. She chose to be sad, which is ok too! But as we were leaving, she was …
Who was your most influential teacher? Why? I have had several influential teachers. Let's start with Kay and Jan Shinol! Kay would tell me "you can't do it wrong." Basically, we are all just making it up as we go along. It's a reminder to go easy on ourselves. Every decision we made was because …
Many of us don't like to hurt or disappoint others. Many times we do things we don't really want to do because the thought of letting another down is soul crushing. We feel things intensely so we ignore the tiny whispers, the gentle nudging and we can talk ourself into just about anything. And in …
Last year, after a health issue and surgery, I realized something needed to change. I put in my resignation as SEL Specialist/MTSS Behavior Coordinator and jumped. But not too far. My son had just graduated college. I was proud yet wistful. How had he grown up so fast? I went to his graduation and listened …
Change was in the air. Felt it, knew it and took steps to set things in motion. At the same time, I was not clear with what was next. I felt I had jumped off a cliff and wasn't sure where I'd land. But ya know? As we get older, it gets easier to be …
I would be happy if only....fill in the blank. My life had been filled with that phrase. It started when I was very young. If only: I didn't have that freckle on my faceI didn't have this compulsionI didn't have this obsessionI was thinI didn't have my pastI didn't have the regretsI had my soulmateI …
Kim Hiles, Author 