About Peggy Guiler
You just never know what show up on my blog. As the name implies it is about the stuff of life just like Spilt Milk. Everyday events spark thought and contemplation. Special events in the community, the country or the world may strike a cord and get me talking. Sometimes it's about people in my life or circumstances, sometimes about my garden, sometimes about a book or a political issue. Always it's about something I am passionate about.
In my business, River of Hope Enterprises (www.riverofhopeenterprises.com), I work as a Minister, Coach/Spiritual Director, a trainer, consultant and speaker. I also drive a school. That helps the cash flow and a bus full of teenagers also helps me keep up with trends in the world of the young and makes me smile.
My family is grown and I have three grandkids who thrill my heart but I don't get to see any of them very often. Circumstances of life have made "family" difficult. My son died by suicide at age 16 in 2000 and the strain on our family relationships since has been huge.
Mental health is a field where I worked for almost 22 years and where I still do some consulting and training. That combined with my own battle with depression and my son's death weave together to form some of my greatest soap box items: suicide intervention, suicide bereavement and peer support in mental health are right on the top of my list. Social justice is an underlying passion.
My original career path as a journalist was augmented with cleaning contracts, cooking, retail clerk, and bartending. I have known hard work and am grateful for the experience and perspective it has given me.
As a single parent I have a deep understanding of making due and being stretched to limit emotionally, physically and financially.
A firmly grounded faith and a passion for learning have now taken me toward a new field as a Spiritual Director and ministry. It is my great honour to support people as they walk through the joy and grief of life.
As I move toward retirement I am very aware that I have to keep working so I chose to do things which will meet my modest financial needs.
Another passion is my love of essential oils. They have changed, even revolutionized, my life on many levels and provide me not only with improving health but also with a network of friends who are a supportive and positive influence.
Woven into all of this is my love of writing. Trained as a Journalist, and having worked in the field as a freelance news writer for many years, I have a great love for writing. This blog was a new beginning for me as I honed my skills. For a while, it was a daily and begin to form a daily discipline and now is a place I drop into on occasion to share something. It changes with my needs and is an evolving exercise.
Living with depression and anxiety for most of my life and adding to that some major “failures” in life like failed relationships and being overweight, there are many days I don’t want to look in the mirror. It’s a constant striving in my walk on this earth to feel valuable. Continue reading →
Living in rural Ontario gives a bit of a feeling of safety from the terrors of the big city but a recent study about suicide deaths caused by guns has left me concerned for the older men of my otherwise … Continue reading →
Many of my blog memories include my grandmother. She was a remarkable woman and a great influence on my life. Life’s best memories include her. Sunday morning breakfast is no exception. After church on Sunday was perhaps one of the … Continue reading →
It is a day filled with tradition and while I miss the wonderful smells and tastes of the day, what I miss the most is that wonderful assurance of feeling loved. Continue reading →
Being stuck at home because of the pandemic has uprooted many peculiar thoughts for me. All this time to reflect has brought things to the surface I haven’t thought of for years. One such memory is of Grandma’s “house dress”. … Continue reading →
The experience was not my first trip into advocacy and not my last but it cemented in me the underlying need of every group who is marginalized and unheard to be included and listened to. Continue reading →
It’s Mother’s Day weekend and I seem to be particularly nostalgic today. I couldn’t help but think of some of the things my Mom used to do that I don’t usually have to do any more. While making the bed … Continue reading →
The story of the crucifixion of Jesus is a great one even if you don’t believe and in this time of polarized thought and mass hysteria it is well worth contemplating. As I read over the scripture in Luke (Holy … Continue reading →
Imagine my surprise when a friend, who appears to have disdain for my faith, reached out to me with consolation and love, to comfort me about a loss, with the words of one of my favourite “Christian”, albeit Godly, authors. … Continue reading →
Years ago when I sought out Spiritual Direction for myself I was a lost and hurting soul. My family and I had suffered some severe spiritual abuse in a church and then I had fallen victim to a similar hurt … Continue reading →
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