Good morning from Martha’s Vineyard. What’s on my mind this morning is the beauty and joy of feeling included, and here’s why. Yesterday I was recording an episode about my experience here on Martha’s Vineyard when I got super emotional and nixed the whole thing. I’ve been noodling ever since what it was that triggered that emotion. I started thinking about a recent episode called the prisms of our wounds and how we experience things through past experiences that wounded us. Without going into my wound in this particular case, I remembered a great story.

I was in Italy. I was just turning 40 years old when I got divorced. Now I had been in a long-term relationship and married for 14 years and I found myself starting a new life. I had a new apartment in Milan. It was beautifully decorated, and I felt this exuberant sense of freedom and positive expectation. But on Sundays, I felt this crippling sense of isolation and loneliness. Back in those days Sunday was a family day and families came together for lunch or dinner, and I inevitably found myself alone. So, I decided that instead of waiting to be invited, I would be the one that invited everyone into my home. Let’s just say that feeling went away, yet it still lingers and I often hear myself say thank you for including me.

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