Pat Snyder believes the best opportunities for growing are in times of transition and that learning to laugh about the changes we experience is no laughing matter. “It’s the secret weapon,” she says, “against stress in our ever-changing lives.”
She should know. Like most of us, Pat – a long-time columnist, retired lawyer and two-time widow, has navigated her share of life transitions.
“In my best moments, I like to think I’m some sort of gymnast,” she says, “somehow landing on my feet and moving on to the next good thing.”
Columnist
Two decades ago, Pat started writing BALANCING ACT, a newspaper column that confessed to the funny mishaps that come from overbooking a life. In it, she started with the transitions that come with marriage, children and work and moved on to caregiving, retirement, and her new favorite topic: right-sizing. When ThisWeek Community News, the Columbus paper that published the column, folded in 2023, readers urged her to put together a Best of BALANCING ACT collection. Stay tuned. It will be published this year.
Right-sizer
Everyone dreads it, right? Otherwise, the basement would not be stuffed with bags and boxes of “stuff” we plan eventually to “go through.” But Boomers probably take the prize for the most stuff and the most urgency in clearing out and moving on to a smaller space. Pat joined the right-sizing crowd in 2020 and spent the pandemic writing essays about the stuff she kept or let go. All this led to an Aha! that recounting the stories of 37 items she reckoned with in the process had clarified her life going forward. Her upcoming book, Unpacking A Life: Reflections of a Right-Sizer, urges readers to grow by unearthing their own stories during the right-sizing process.
Speaker/Workshop Leader
Pat brings her own writing and right-sizing experiences to workshops where participants can swap stories about the “stuff” in their lives. She also urges participants to use their stuff as prompts to create their own stories and find more clarity on personal values and what’s next. Whether they put pen to paper or simply think about which items move them forward or hold them back, workshop members will learn how to use right-sizing to become acquainted with themselves and grow.
Positive Psychology Enthusiast
With a Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree from The University of Pennsylvania, Pat bases her work on positive psychology principles, including the power of storytelling to transform lives. Discover positive psychology resources on this web page and in her Balancing Tips newsletter and blog, The Dog Journal.
