Diane Petrella

12/24/2025

For those who need to hear this ❤️

12/24/2025

For those celebrating Christmas, I wish for you a gentle holiday filled with peace and happiness. Blessings to you and yours. 💛

12/20/2025

Every year at Christmastime, I make Italian pizzelle. It's a family tradition and my mother (who emmigrated from Italy) made them every year, too. So I find joy in continuing her routine.

After making the batter, it's a fairly labor intensive process with using the waffle iron to make two pizzelle at a time. But I love that because it's kind of meditative for me.

My pizzelle are not too sweet and they taste so good with a cup of tea or coffee. Baking soothes me and it helped to make these given the stress I experienced with the Brown shootings. (Thankfully, there's some closure to that investigation now.)

Do you have a favorite holiday food? Please share!

Happy holidays to you and yours! 🌟

12/19/2025

If you're grieving, this will help. The next group is on 12/21.

When you’re in grief, the holidays can be so challenging.
This time of year can feel so painful. The world is loud with joy — and inside, you’re aching.
I am offering a complimentary grief support series for anyone struggling this holiday season.
In these three December sessions, you'll find gentle space for:
Coping with holiday grief

Navigating family and expectations

Honoring your person

Taking care of yourself without apology

Live on Sundays, December 7th, 14th and 21st at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET — replays available
HolidayGrief.com

12/17/2025

It’s been a tough week here in Rhode Island… and the world. Peace to you this holiday season. 💜

12/17/2025

Some comfort and joy after a somber few days here in Rhode Island... and the world. 💜

12/14/2025

I felt shocked, stunned, and scared yesterday afternoon when I learned of the shooting at Brown University. This massacre happened 1/2 mile from my former office and home when I lived in Providence. Sobering.

I'm not someone who thinks "this will never happen here." With the proliferation and worship of guns in this country, I figured it was only a matter of time before it happened here.

At least two people, presumably students, have died. To my knowledge, eight others are hospitalized, most in critical condition.

I feel so sad.

Please drop a ❤️ below and keep my state and Providence in your prays. Thank you.

12/12/2025

Feelings are timeless. This means that, when triggered, your nervous system and inner child do not know the difference between 2025 and... 1964, 1973, 1986, or 2000. Because when you feel triggered, you and your body are emotionally and physiologically pulled back in time.

This isn't your fault. But it is your responsibility to work it through. And healing is possible. So stay the course, okay?

12/10/2025

What matters most is how YOU feel about yourself.

So give yourself the most precious gift of self-love and acceptance, okay? 💜

12/07/2025

This time of year is not all joy and good cheer and can be difficult for a lot of people.

If were raised in an abusive or dysfunctional family and have strained relationships, or separated yourself entirely for whatever reason, seeing other people in seemingly happy families can feel very painful.

If you experienced a recent loss, I am so sorry. The holidays can make that loss even more hard to bear.

You're not alone.

If you need support, reach out to a trusted person. Or call the 988 crisis lifeline for emotional support.

If you know someone who's hurting, reach out. Never underestimate the power of a simple phone call or text asking, "How are you doing?" That act of caring can ease someone's loneliness and brighten their day.

If you're struggling, I see you. I'm sending love, and while only virtually, I hope you can feel it. You're not alone. 💛

12/04/2025

Having worked with children who were sexually abused, this use of language disturbs me deeply.

No, a 14-year-old teenager is not a woman or a man. In the eyes of the law, and also developmentally, they are still children.

Calling a teenage girl who is the victim of sexual assault a "woman" serves to protect the perpetrator and dismisses the female victim's experience.

We have all seen this language in the media and, what is even more egregious, in courtrooms. And of course when it comes to the Epstein files.

Let's call it out when we see it, okay? Our children and teens need our protection.

🤔

12/02/2025

It's Giving Tuesday. Do you have a favorite charity where you donate your time or money?

Acts of generosity hold a powerful energy. Give freely of your time, helpfulness, money, wisdom, and all the goodness inside of you. Not only on a designated day, but always.

I don’t mean to suggest that you give without a sensitivity to your own needs, of course, but to give when you can in all the ways that you can.

While being generous is a compassionate way of living, it’s actually not about unconditional altruism.

Generosity is a superpower. Because what you give comes back to you.

Over the years, I’ve experienced how what I have given returned to me. Not necessarily in the exact ways I’ve offered, but energetically my generosity opened space for new and expanded gifts to flow back into my own life.

I think of generosity as the Feedback Loop of Love.

On this give freely. Give joyfully. Give quietly.

Because when you are generous, like an alchemical reaction, you’ll notice your life expand and transform in beautiful, magical, and loving ways.

I'm giving to Amos House a social service agency that helps the unhoused. What about you?