Happy Thanksgiving 2025!
As always, readers, I’m thankful to be with you!
As I’ve mentioned before, I come from a large, vociferously opinionated extended family and considered holidays when I was young to be forced marches.
As a result, on holidays now I do almost none of the traditional activities and celebrate my ability to do so.
One gift from those old holidays that’s kept on giving: my awareness that I can love someone while disagreeing with almost everything they say.
If you are doing exactly what you’d like this Thanksgiving, I’m so happy for you. If you’re not, my support will be with you.
For a little tangible support, here is something I ran on Valentine’s Day in 2024:
As you know, I work as an academic tutor and coach for children and teens. Much of my work is helping them deal with anxiety.
In a class I take that trains therapists and coaches, I recently learned about the book “Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster,” by Linda Graham, a marriage and family therapist.
The book contains more than 130 exercises to help people survive and thrive, no matter what.
So for this Valentine’s Day, in these anxious times, here is a very simple tool Graham describes as “portable equilibrium,” that’s powerful enough to calm a panic attack in less than a minute:
— Put your hand on your heart and breathe in a sense of safety or goodness.
— Remember one moment when you felt safe or loved by another human or a pet.
— Feel those feelings for 20 to 30 seconds.
— Repeat this practice many times a day at first, “to strengthen the neural circuitry that remembers this pattern.”
“Remembering a moment of feeling safe, loved, and cherished by another person or pet activates the social vagus, reassuring you that indeed you are safe, you belong, and you are welcomed,” Graham says. “Your blood pressure decreases, and your heart rate stabilizes. You return to the sense of safety that comes from a feeling of connection and belonging with safe others, even when you are alone.”
She suggests practicing this exercise whenever you feel the first sign of an upset. With practice, it will enable you to avert a difficult emotional reaction before it hijacks you.
At a minimum, she suggests practicing it five times a day for a week to train your brain in this new response to any difficult moment.
Note to readers: I’ll see you next on Tuesday, Dec. 2.
In the news
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Lawmakers questioning the legality of Border Patrol license plate reader program
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Politico: Mike Johnson is losing control of the House as lawmakers wield discharge petitions
Pentagon says it’s investigating Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly over video urging troops to defy ‘illegal orders’
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Trump was going to roll out a health care plan; then Hill Republicans weighed in
Trump administration plan to reduce access to some student loans angers nurses, health groups
Trump signs executive order directing science agencies to embrace AI
Judge dismisses Comey, James indictments after concluding that prosecutor Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed
ProPublica: Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, long a defender of states’ rights, is embracing Trump’s push to expand presidential power
Robert Reich on the concentration of U.S. media ownership among a few billionaires
Viola Ford Fletcher, one of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre’s last survivors, dies at age 111
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