Stonewall Strong

What gay men's struggles and successes reveal about resilience and community

John-Manuel Andriote

9 Tips for Embracing the Good Things in Your Life

A Personal Perspective: Embracing your life isn't only about facing the challenges life brings. It means accepting and fully occupying life's good times, too.

The purpose of crocus may simply be to delight us by heralding the start of spring.

Knowing Your "Why" Will Get You Through Just About Any "How"

It's hard sometimes to keep going when the going is rough. But when you have a purpose, a reason to move forward, you can get through pretty much anything.

Standing Out and Standing Strong

Are you sick of others stigmatizing your age, health condition, or something else that makes you different from their standard of "normal"? Reject their stigma and define yourself.

What It Means to Embrace Your Life and the Path You Chose

Too often we squander our time wishing we could live another life than the one we have been given. But only we can choose to take the road that will lead us to our true home.

When all the news seems to be bad news, it's hard to find the good. But it's there. Look for the light.

Don't Just Light a Candle, Be One

The world seems like a dark place. But we can help brighten it by finding and sharing the light within us.

Home is more than a house or a holiday. You might say it's a state of being.

How to Live with Homesickness During the Holidays and Beyond

Homesickness can dampen our holiday cheer. Fortunately, there are things we can do to reduce the gloom and enjoy the moment even while missing the places and people who mean "home."

Notice things. Let yourself be awed. Gratitude flows from these simple actions.

Five Ways to Cultivate an "Attitude of Gratitude"

Sometimes it can feel as if life's challenges are pulling us further out on a sea of troubles. Focusing on what we are grateful for keeps us anchored in reality.

9 Steps For Living an October Life

Fall offers powerful lessons for living with authenticity and wisdom. The month of October shouts those lessons from the treetops.

A visiting Monarch seeks a late-summer sip of nectar from a zinnia.

5 Steps Toward Finding Happiness

Stop pursuing happiness and instead focus on knowing yourself. You may be surprised by how much a sense of purpose and meaning will increase your happiness.

Like a tree, our lives have 'rings' that mark the accumulation of choices we make in how to live.

5 Steps Toward Creating the Life You Want

If you're feeling an urge for a better life than you are living now, these steps could help you create it.

Why New England's Stonewalls Represent "Yankee Grit"

Trying to imagine what resilience looks like? Consider the iconic stonewalls of New England, monuments to the tested and toughened people who built them.

Singing together builds social connection and supports our resilience.

How Music Heals and Inspires Us in Challenging Times

Making music, even just listening to it, can alter our mood and build social connections among people. It's also a powerful tool to support our resilience.

HIV-AIDS’ Lessons for Mourning Loved Ones Lost to COVID-19

Gay men in the HIV-AIDS epidemic were forced to create their own ways to mourn loved ones. What they learned offers powerful lessons for traumatized survivors of COVID-19.

How to Celebrate Pride (and Have a Better Life, Too)

Pride Month is for everyone who knows about seizing control of their life story and telling it as a tale of heroism and survival.

Survey: Older Americans’ Long View Helped in Pandemic

A new survey shows that Americans over age 65 largely practiced resilient behaviors that helped them through the pandemic’s isolation and worry.

Even Cherries for Sale Can Evoke Sorrow, and Sweetness

Navigating through a triggering event can require us to embrace the pain of loss and the sweetness of memory. It’s challenging, but it’s the only healthy way to forge ahead.

Life is all about change, and resilience helps us navigate the change.

9 Tools to Stay Resilient During Your Life’s Transitions

Are you going through a major transition? Is life, or someone, putting you through changes? Tools are available to help you get through it all intact.

We’ve all been emotionally banged up by the pandemic. Time to focus on healing.

7 Steps to Adapting After the Pandemic’s Trauma and Stress

Grief, loss, stress, sorrow, and fear of infection have made it harder than ever to maintain good mental health. But there are practical steps we can take to counteract the impact.

Learning How to Honor a Departed Loved One’s Memory

Living your life in a way that would make your departed loved ones proud of you may be the best way to honor their memory. Here’s how I learned this truth.

When a Leap of Faith Is the Best Way Forward

Unsatisfied with your life? Maybe it’s time for a bold step forward, a leap of faith. First, gather information and support to make sure your faith isn’t blind.

Spring Can Bring New Growth If We Don't Block the Light

Spring reveals the power of light and warmth to stimulate new life, and holds an important lesson on how we grow, too.

Facing Our Life’s “Monsters” Is How We Become Resilient

We all face traumatic experiences that threaten to overwhelm us. Choosing to be brave, knowing you’ll “live to tell about it,” helps get you to the other side.

Self-care is more important than ever during, and after, COVID-19. It helps keep the parts of us in their right, healthy place.

How to Stay Mentally Resilient During and After the Pandemic

COVID-19, like past pandemics and disasters, will continue to affect our mental health. But there are things we can do to protect ourselves against the impact.

Forgiveness strengthens our resilience by keeping us in control of our emotions.

Forgive Those Who Trespass Against You, for Your Own Sake

Holding onto unforgiving emotions corrodes our hearts and minds. Forgiveness is a powerful, proactive choice that can clear away the corrosion and free us to be our best.

The sky is pure azure beyond the storm clouds, in North Franklin, Connecticut.

Hope Keeps Us Going, But We Have to Get Ourselves There

You can hope until the cows come home that your life will be better than it used to be or still is. But until hopefulness spurs you to take action, nothing will change.

Are Scars Evidence of Our Wounds or Our Healing?

Our scars reveal where we have been. Are they evidence of the awful things that happened to us? Or proof that we are survivors?

My footprints in the sand at Herring Cove Beach, Provincetown, Mass.

What’s Stopping Me? It’s a Good Slogan to Live By

Don't make life harder with a list of must-dos and don'ts for the coming year. Find a slogan you like that will remind you of what you want to accomplish. Then watch it work.

The author's own 40-year-old teddy, the gift of a beloved friend and mentor.

Why We Need Our Teddies and Winnie-the-Pooh, Too

The nursery magic that makes playthings real in our imagination can still ease our fears and worries.

Christmas lights illuminate the dark night on Boston’s Union Park.

How Holiday Glitter Helps Keep Us Going

I called my little Christmas tree my “Tree of Life” after a medical diagnosis plunged me into darkness. It’s why I’m all for lights and sparkles at this COVID-19 Christmastime.

How Should We Thank Our Heroes This Holiday Season?

One thing to be grateful for in this difficult year: The decency that drives people to act heroically.

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