Counseling Heart to Heart, Nona Kelly LMFT

29/03/2025

May you find joy in the small, seemingly insignificant moments today! Breathe in goodness, exhale any negative you may be holding.

27/03/2025

Today can be a great day, it can also be a tough day. They can exist together. While we don’t have control over the challenges we will all face today, we can make a choice to have a great attitude! We can smile, make a strangers day better by a random act of kindness, compliment freely.

We tend to tell ourselves we can’t “be happy “ because our lives aren’t perfect.
Life slips by very quickly, make this day of your life count! You can choose happiness! Be intentional with your thoughts and see if you don’t feel just a bit happier!

I have been watching a redbud tree preparing to bloom. I saw two days ago it had exploded into its full beauty! How awesome it was to take the photo and appreciate something I had nothing to do with, except enjoy! Can you find one thing to focus on today that’s beautiful? Appreciate that one thing! Allow yourself to focus on the simple beauty and feel the blessing that it’s YOU who gets to be there! Be blessed!

06/08/2024

28/06/2023

Beautiful

Food. Clothing. Shelter.

It started there. It ended there. I’m referring to the raising portion of parenting. Let me explain.

Last week, my husband and I dropped off our youngest son in Texas to begin his first job.

I can do this, I reminded myself, scouring the Internet for online furniture deals and tips on finding apartments. It means we’ve done a good job. He’s ready, I whisper under my breath.

We have three children, all in their twenties. The launching phase is what we call it; the urging forward of our favorite humans. Separate from us and on three very different paths. Like rockets heading into the night sky.

Twenty-eight years ago, we brought our oldest (daughter) home from the hospital. The Irish nurse in the maternity wing demonstrated how to diaper and dress our tiny little girl. I was breast feeding (or trying to) at the time. The nurse tried to calm our nerves by offering advice.

“Today you start with food, clothing and shelter. The rest comes tomorrow,” she said with a lilting brogue. I never forgot it. Why had it popped into my head years later as we lugged our son’s boxes and suitcases up three flights in the 100-degree Texas heat?

As the mom, I’d been in charge of things for so long. I’d never stopped to think about how little had actually been under my control.

We divided up jobs for the move: I’d be in charge of ordering a couch, bedding and kitchen stuff. My husband would buy a TV and stock the fridge. Our son would do all of the packing. His lease was already co-signed. The key was waiting.

Food. Clothing. Shelter.

Back were we started? So many things in life seem to loop back around. I remember the tender way my mother pulled me close to read before bedtime. Years later, I held her hand as she slipped away.

The first and most important parenting chapter has closed. Whether I was ready or not. It was defining. All consuming. It mattered, I remind myself.

My husband and I won’t need to feed or clothe or house our three grown children anymore. We stand in front of another door now. A new chapter, all the parenting articles say. Weddings. Grandchildren. New adventures ahead.

A loop.

Of love. Of connection. Pieces of one another that we hold—even when our loved ones are out of sight. In our hands. In our hearts.

Most days I have faith that won’t change. That when part of you moves to a third floor walk up four states away, somehow he can also be right here.—By Cathleen Daly

18/06/2023

Happy Father’s Day to all who are fathers or stood in the place of a father for someone!

22/03/2023

An article I recently contributed to. Hoping to help family’s everywhere!

According to family therapists

22/03/2023

An article I contributed to recently!

Getting ghosted can really alter your sense of self-worth. Luckily, we spoke with an expert who shared her advice on how to navigate this tough situation.

12/01/2023

An article I contributed to! Healthy families are my goal!

According to family therapists

25/05/2022

It’s good for our mental and physical health to get out and see nature at it’s finest! Great Smoky Mountains is where I found it this morning!