Integrate!

How many people do you think genuinely look forward to the season of endless small talk with people they haven't arranged to meet for months? If you would rather Netflix 'n chill than meet new people, you're not alone. It's really hard to have a good conversation with someone who is as uncomfortable as you are. Here are three ways you can do better and feel better, whether your holiday includes parties with extended family and friends or endless work socials. If you wouldn't want to meet someone who feels the way you do, change the way you feel. You can't become a different person but you can be a person in a different state. Listen to music, go for a walk or take a moment to remember just one time you met someone and it worked out beautifully. Repeat as often as necessary to find the self that people will look forward to meeting. Think about why you've shown up. If you're at a social you don't want to attend, there must be a pretty good r...

Once upon a time, there was good coffee and homemade banana bread waiting for you early on a weekend morning. Somehow, although the weekend would be full of travel and challenges, time slowed down as you bit into the fresh, soft goodness. It was good. You were good. That's how our story starts. Whenever we gather for a course or event, I bake banana bread. Even the people who don't eat the banana bread like what it means for their weekends: you're starting from home; someone cares; you do have the energy for what you want to accomplish. It's hard to arrange this for yourself. If you bake your own banana bread, it's doesn't come with that little bit of surprise. If you seek it out at a favourite cafe, you get the treat, but not the same sense that it was made with you in mind, that it's reaching out like a hug. The public space is not often an anchor to home, and the public banana bread is not often exactly what we need to take us home. People take m...