Running By Z Zoccolante It’s about 200 thousand degrees outside. The sun is finally thinking about setting for the day and the mist is rolling in from the ocean. Vega and I make our way to the grassy knoll, her little body pulling the harness like she’s trying to pull a sled through mountains of snow. Today, I’m the only one here, in the open air, with the green grass and blue sky stretching over the bluff with houses...
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What I Have is Worth Sharing By Z Zoccolante As the counselor closed the group at our drug and alcohol rehab, we all went around the circle and said one thing we got out of the group. “That what I have is worth sharing,” one of the guys said. Damn, I thought. I liked this group because it wasn’t about all the triggers to relapse or all the ways people had ruined their lives and relationships. This group was...
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Using Brain Plasticity to Supercharge Your Brain Guest Post by Anna Kucirkova * A note from Z: As someone who works at a drug/alcohol rehab, I often get asked the question, “Will my brain ever go back to ‘normal’?” When we’ve abused our brain, for any reason, we often wonder if we will ever heal. The answer is Yes, We Can, because of something called neuroplasticity! Here’s what it is and how it...
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We All Want Attention By Z Zoccolante He shrugs and gets up from the wooden chair under the trees we’ve been sitting. “Do you want or need a hug,” I say, as I do with all my client peeps. “Do you,” he asks, and I laugh. “Sure,” I say knowing he chooses the hug every time. He turns. His hand lingers on the top of the chair. “Do you think it’s wrong that I pursue being around women,” he says. In our session, we’ve talked...
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The Beauty of English By Z Zoccolante Pardon my absence; I’ve been on adventures. Physically I returned, but not quite mentally yet. As my dog and I meander to the grassy knoll I watch the world around me with a sliver of detachment, as my mind is full of mountains of houses stretching to the ocean, tiny cobblestone streets, and different languages in my ears. I adore words and believe that they are magic. They have the...
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Doing Big Things By Z Zoccolante What’s your dream? The real one. The one that kept you up at night as a kid tracing patterns on the walls of your mind. The one you daydreamt about while working your 9 to 5, or sitting in brain-dead traffic on the highway. The one you wrote about in your journal and put little stars around the page. Maybe the one you’ve never told anyone, the one you’ve never uttered out loud. What is...
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