Love Notes for Honesty

Posted on November 28, 2025 by Catherine Cheng, MD

This one will be a challenge, friends. How does one write love notes about honesty without sounding condescending? Most of these will be self-reflection, I think. So I invite my friends to join in exploration and aspiration. Let’s see what happens!

May we always be honest with ourselves first, even and especially when it’s hard. Then we can be honest with others when it matters.

2. Let us hold ourselves compassionately accountable for our biases, prejudices, assumptions, and stubborn narratives. May we own our shit for all our sakes.

3. Telling the truth can be scary and painful. But let us step up and do it anyway, kindly, directly, humanely. Our future selves will thank one another for our moral fortitude.

4. When I show up honest and open, especially facing your passive aggression, I aim to both honor my integrity and earn your respect. It’s all I can do.

5. May your most honest self always have a strong hand on the wheel of your moral car. May the signals and headlights shine bright so others see your integrity clearly.

6. May you experience many times over the benefits and rewards of honesty more than the risks and costs. The net positives outweigh the negatives if we stick with it!

7. I assume you are an honest person. I know it’s really hard to tell the truth in many situations. I respect you for standing in your honesty however possible. Thank you.

8. Ugh, my biases are strong and steer me to the far lanes of human traffic sometimes. How ’bout you? May we be both firmly and gently honest with ourselves.

9. Let us all always combine honesty with empathy, kindness, and compassion, and deliver our truths from love before anything else. Easier said than done; worth the effort.

10. Even when we are honest (which we too often are not), our truths are still only stories we choose to tell. Even we ourselves must take them with a grain of salt.

11. Yes, always be honest. And attend to context. Not every truth is appropriate for every moment. Choose wisely. Protect relationships with kindness and respect.

12. Thank you (for) being kind and discerning in your honesty. It means so much when you take others’ feelings into account when you offer your truths.

Huh. Are they love notes? Do you feel loved reading them? I hope so. 🙂

Love Notes for Homecoming

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Catherine Cheng, MD

Both kids are home for the first time since the nest emptied. I love when they’re at school and I love when they are home. This. Is. AWESOME.
Also, thanks to my lovely friends, their empathic listening and honest reflections, I was able to shift out of ‘you suck’ mode from yesterday and reclaim my better, more loving self today.
The best advice I ever got for mindfulness training was, “Celebrate the return.”
How lovely.
Tonight I celebrate various returns.
Hope you can do the same, my friends.

My dear friend, may your self-love serve you well enough to feel at home in yourself no matter where you go and who you meet. You are you and you are enough.

2. Whenever you venture out into the brave new worlds of life, may you always feel the safety and security of home to come back to.

3. If home is far away, may you have strong and reliable ways to feel connected anytime you need. May you feel home within you always.

4. I know you love me because you always welcome me home to myself and us, no matter how far afield I may fly. Thank you thank you thank you.

5. *sigh* Home. Make it wherever and whatever you need. Make it your base from whence all your life adventures begin. Welcome.

6. Open arms Big hearts Warm food & endless hugs and smiles that feed your soul – May you encounter these at home always.

7. Home is such a special place, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a place. Could be a person or a state of mind. Wishing you to always feel at home.

8. Do you prefer out-and-back or looping trails? Either way you return to the origin, but now having ventured to see somewhere else. Grow for it!

9. Wherever your strong affinity calls you, wherever you know as home, may you access that inner or outer space often and deeply.

10. Whether you have one home or multiple, define home as place, people, or other, may it/they always be welcoming and safe, a refuge for your very being.

11. We all wander off-track sometimes. It’s okay, perfectly normal. May we celebrate when we return to the path. Yes, celebrate the return.

12. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re home until we leave and come back… The comfort, the familiarity, the peace. Welcome home.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. Three more days of November. It went by too fast! Wishing all of us to walk forth with our tanks a little more full, filling one another’s.

Love Notes for Patience

Posted on November 26, 2025 by Catherine Cheng, MD

*deep breaths*

The post office lady. My patient. The airport traffic lady. Holiday highway drivers.
It’s been a day of tense interactions.
In real time, I think to myself, ‘Be kind. Be open, curious, empathetic, generous–walk the talk, omg.’
And then all I can muster is to not snark, snide, and agress back, to wave politely, say thank you, and move on. Couldn’t quite muster the more loving me.
Some days we are not our best selves. It’s okay. We’re doing our best.
We keep practicing patience with ourselves and others. We are enough.

Our world tells us to expect everything now. Our perspective narrows in ways that jeopardize connection and peace. Beware.

2. Something feels off here, and I cannot put my finger on it all the way. Some may say I overthink. I think I just need to understand. Gimme a minute, please.

3. Deep breaths, my love. You’re doing your best. So am I. May we approach each other gently.

4. Thank you so much for your patience with me. Sleep deprivation, menopause, stress, and the state of the world all erode my mind today. Thank you for not throwing me away.

5. Your patience is such a gift to me. Thank you for seeing my efforts to keep up and also do a good (great) job. Please know I do my best for you.

6. You know your truth… You may just not trust it all the way yet. It will become clear over time – let it rise and show itself to the whole of you.

7. Breathe in Hold Breathe out Hold Repeat. It’s okay to feel any emotion. And we can regulate while we wait it out.

8. Consistency over intensity. Small, sustainable change. The results will come. Stick with the program. It will take time. You’ got this.

9. Sometimes it’s most disappointing when we don’t live up to or own standards. We are all works in progress. Every ‘failure’ can help us grow. Keep going.

10. To those who show us patience and forbearance, thank you. May we pay it forward whenever possible. We can all help each other out this way.

11. When you feel harried and anxious, may an infinitely patient soul cross your path, touch your arm, look into your eyes, and share their calm. It will all get done. It’s okay.