Month: January 2021

Declutter Our Minds

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love. (this will be the daily mantra of the blog, for the rest of this year.)

“You spend most of your time inside of your head. Make it a nice place to be.”- Growth Hub

This is the time of the year, that a lot of us do some decluttering in our homes. My husband went to town on his closet the other day, and he filled up a nice, big bag for Goodwill. My closet cleaning is still at the intention stage, but it is a priority – a major one, that I plan to get to, in the coming days. My friend was asking a group of us for ideas about how to decorate her shelves, after taking all of her clutter, off of them. One member of our friend group, who has exquisite tastes, was singled out for ideas. She is a self proclaimed minimalist, but what I loved the best was her answer. My lovely friend said that you should fill your shelves with what you love, and what makes you happy, because truthfully, you are the only one who sees your shelves on a regular, daily basis.

The same sentiment certainly applies to our heads, right? We are the only ones with access to our minds. The inside of our heads is sacred space, so holy that we are the only ones privy to what goes on, inside of it. Sure, we can spill out what is churning in our brains, to other people, but oftentimes, what we spill out in our conversations, and our interactions with others, is usually just a regurgitation of everything which we have allowed into our minds.

When we get on a health kick, we become super conscious about what we are eating and drinking and consuming. We get real honest with ourselves about what is good to put into our bodies, and what about our diets, needs to be laid to waste. When we declutter our drawers and our cabinets and our shelves, we often use the Marie Kondo question, “Does this item spark joy in me?” Perhaps, we should use these same methods, when decorating the insides of our heads.

I imagine if we wanted to create a real ugly devil’s den inside of our heads, we could fill our minds with every negative news piece we could find. We could fill our minds with ruminations about everything that we don’t like about our jobs, our country, and the people who annoy us. We could fuel the raging fires with our fears, and our worries, and focus our imaginations on possible upcoming catastrophes. What would a decluttered mind look like, though? What if we took it down to the studs? What if we kept open doors on both sides of our heads, so that thoughts could come in, and just as easily pass on through, keeping our minds open and breezy and clear to views which might really resonate with us, down to the true command center of our hearts, where our precious souls reside.

The older I get, the more I see simple truths. What is good for the body and is good for the soul, is good for the mind. What is happening outside of us, is often just a projection of what is happening inside of us. We frequently forget just how much power and control we really wield, in our lives. Just as we clutter up our houses, we also have the power to clean out what no longer sparks joy. Just as we fill up our bodies with junk food, we can fill them up with wholesome nutrients, instead. Just as we can obsessively click on one negative news story, or triggering social media post after another, we can stop and we can breathe, and we can clean out what does not belong in our sacred mindspace. The irony of it all, is that we are always trying to control and fix “the outsides”, but if we control what is happening inside of us, the outsides usually look a whole lot better. When we take care of our bodies, we have more energy, and we fit into our clothes better. When we take time to really feed our souls with what feels good to us, by communing with nature and people and animals and our Source, we no longer have gaping holes that we try to fill with things that clutter up our lives, or substances that hurt our bodies. When we take the time to cleanse our minds of negative thoughts and beliefs and worries, we have more wide, open space to fill our brains with wonder and awe and amazement about all of the miracles of life surrounding us. When we stay in our own lanes, and when we focus on the only triumvirate that we do have any real control over, that being our own minds, our own bodies and our own souls, the outsides just have a way of taking care of themselves. When we have an inside sense of calm and control and order, we no longer need to concern ourselves with controlling anything outside of us. Trying to control “the outsides” was just our fruitless way of trying to get that internal sense of calm and control and order for ourselves, which has been available to us, all of the time. Ironic, right?

“Everyone wants peace, inside and outside, and we would all have it if we knew how. Now we know how. It begins with you.” – Byron Katie

“Create a friendly atmosphere on the inside and outside. Live Friendly. Be a friendly person on the inside. Have the attitude it takes to be smiling internally first.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. I don’t think that this past full week of the new year is what any of us were aiming for, to start the year out right. These are strange times which we are going through. However, we are not alone. We are experiencing a lot of “stuff”, together. I am grateful to commune with all of you, as we navigate another year of our lives, together. My regular readers know that I dedicate Sundays to poetry. Please share your poems (they are there, in your heart – put a pen in your hand and let them flow out. You will be pleasantly surprised – “Shakespeare’s a poet, and doesn’t know it”) in my Comments section. Today I wrote this poem (I hope that you may relate, and that you can enjoy some familiarity, with me):

It Never Fails

It never fails,

Every year I find it,

That one little relic,

of the holidays past,

That I forgot to put away.

This year it was a sparkly hand towel,

In the powder room,

Depicting a Christmas tree,

Shiny, erect, hopeful and bright.

Could it be a subconscious hint?

Much like a woman who leaves her glove,

After an enjoyable evening out,

Perhaps it’s an honest mistake,

or perhaps it’s an intuitive gesture,

From something deep inside,

Trying to connect and to keep and to hold,

The magic of the moment alive,

For the entire year to come.

Lucky Find

I get a “word of the day” emailed to me every day. This week, I liked one “word of the day” so much, I put it in my journal. I like this word so much, that I am blogging about it this morning. The word is French. The word is “trouvaille”. It means “lucky find”. How fitting that this new word in my vocabulary is a lucky find for me! As I write this, Ralphie, our big ol’ goofy Labrador retriever is playing the piano. He recently discovered that he can play the piano by pushing the keys with his chin. His musical talents are a lucky find for him. (whether his new found talent turns out to be a lucky thing for us, remains to be seen – thank goodness for piano key covers) What are some of your “lucky finds” in your life? I consider my husband, and my friends, and my dogs, to be my best “lucky finds”. I have a pewter bunny bank full of lucky pennies, found as I go about my daily business. One time I found several beautiful Hermes scarves at a thrift shop, for the whopping cost of five dollars each. There are so many books that I have read over the years that turned out to be “the right book, at the right time.” They were trouvailles, for sure. Our lives are full of trouvailles, if we are willing to look for them and recognize them for what they are, and what they mean to us. I am wishing for all us, many trouvailles in the new year and beyond. Let’s focus on our trouvailles, versus our troubles.

“We are all a great deal luckier that we realize, we usually get what we want – or near enough.”– Roald Dahl

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”– Cormac McCarthy

Fuzzy Friday

I was going to share this picture with you, my readers, yesterday, but instead there was a fiasco in Washington DC that sorely needed to be addressed. I needed to get my feelings out about everything, in written form. That’s how I best process my inner emotional world – by writing. Anyway, welcome to Favorite Things Friday! On Fridays (in honor of my favorite day of the week), I typically list three favorite things, or songs, or books, or ideas, or websites, which have made my life a little more colorful and interesting and I strongly encourage you to add your favorites to my Comments section. Check out my previous Friday posts for more favorites. They can provide ideas for what to spend your holiday gift cards on. I usually use up my holiday gift cards almost immediately, every year. I tell myself that I am afraid of losing the gift cards, plus the sales are great, so I go all in. I am always amazed when people have gift cards left over from the previous decade. I am in awe of people who still have gift cards to places that already have new logos.

A few Fridays ago, I mentioned a favorite new app for my phone, called Marco Polo. In posting a video with a group of my friends, I caught the giggles and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I thought to myself, what a wonderful thing to have in my back pocket – a video of me, laughing. So on days, when it is hard to find something to laugh about it, I can watch myself laugh, as a reminder of brighter days. On to my favorites for today:

Chia Pets – My husband got the Bob Ross Chia Pet pictured above, for my daughter for Christmas (among other things). It has brought a lot of smiles to our family (and now hopefully to you, too). Bring back the wonderment of your childhood and buy yourself a chia pet. They grow really fast (obviously) and the chia pet will help you to make your own video of yourself, giggling, as you watch your pet grow.

S.O.A.R. – I read about this mindfulness technique recently and it has really helped me to deal with everything that is going on in our world these days. When you feel a turbulence of feelings, use this technique.

S. – Stop and breathe deeply. (deep enough to make your belly rise and fall)

O. – Stay detached and observe what your feeling feels like, in a physical sense. Where does anger land in your body? What is the physical sensation of sad or bewildered?

A. – Accept your feelings. What we resist, persists. What we try to disown in us, doesn’t go away, it just often shows up in other ways, like in the form of sickness, or in sleep disturbances, or in short fuses, etc. Feelings are just feelings. It is okay to feel whatever you feel. Just accept your feelings.

R. – Release and let go of that feeling. You will be surprised by how easily a feeling that has been observed and accepted, will pass on by. We experience thousands of different thoughts and a wide range of feelings every day. I always remind myself and my family, that our true essence is that of the steady blue sky. Clouds come, and they go. The clouds always, always pass on through.

Addison Weeks Jewelry – I have probably shared this designer with you before, but I keep going back for more pieces of this jewelry. (My husband bought me my first piece of Addison Weeks jewelry, as a gift, a few years ago. He probably rues the day.) This year, I have fallen in love with Addison Weeks’ chains and charms that are interchangeable and look so lovely, layered together. My favorite thing about Addison Weeks jewelry is that it always incorporates natural crystals and stones. I love to wear nature. It calms me. It grounds me. Wearing a piece of what has come from the earth, feels right and Addison Weeks allows me to do this, is a fashionable, eye-catching way.

Happy Friday, my dear friends and readers!! Have a lovely weekend! See you tomorrow.

Heal.

I have no words that haven’t already been expressed about yesterday’s horrible display at the Capitol building. I am deeply saddened, disgusted, pained, mortified, flattened, outraged, etc. by the actual events, by how the events were handled, and what this display really shows about the state of our country. This is not the United States of America I was raised to love and to cherish and to respect and to revere. This is not the United States of America that so many of my dear family members were willing to wager their lives on, by serving in our military. We must find a way back to our United selves. It has become imperative.

How do we do this? We heal ourselves. Yesterday, Congress did a good job of rising to the occasion. Can you imagine how utterly terrifying their experience of being bombarded on, by an angry mob had to be? To have to cower, and to wear gas masks and to remain in a locked down room for hours? Yet, our senators and our congressmen and congresswomen, rose above their fears and they did the right thing, together, for the unified vision of our democracy. Republicans, Democrats, Independents from every unique state of our nation, overcame their trauma, to do the right thing for our country. They became united because their trauma woke them into the pure reality of how fragile our precious, hard won, democracy really is, in the face of it all.

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about a question that I am planning on focusing on, in my own life, this year. Am I passing on love, or am I passing on pain? There is a lot of searing pain in this country. And a lot of this pain is justified. The pain comes from every sector, every race, every community, every generation, every family. It is our job to heal our own pain, so that the pain of our country, this deeply wounded chasm, starts to heal, on a macro-level. We must help each other to heal, by passing on love. We each can only heal ourselves. And each of us knows best how to do our own peaceful healing, with the help of our own sacred higher power. We must support each other in our healing, versus fueling the fires of hatred, which only keeps the disease of division, alive in this co-creation of our ever-evolving country.

Other countries may mock us. They may be scolding us and secretly, relishing in our current upheaval. But deep down, they are trembling in pain and in fear. They are as mortified as we are, about the state of our division. The United States is a beacon of hope, all over the world. No one can deny this. No one can afford to lose hope. It is our job to heal ourselves, so that hope can remain, for us, and for everyone around this globe.

My solemn prayer is that our lawmakers, our business heads, our political leaders, our religious guides, our major media stations, only have one major purpose in mind, in going about their duties, going into this new year and beyond. That purpose is to make all actions, and all decisions, and all priorities, about healing us back into a united state. In the meantime, the rest of us have the job to heal our own minds and our own bodies and our own spirits, by acknowledging our own pains, our own angers, our own grievances, and finding healthy, serene ways to heal these pains that lie within ourselves. There is nothing stronger, and more radiant than a group of healed and healthy people, united in the vision that our forefathers so carefully laid out for this country.

Remember, you must heal yourself. Don’t be so arrogant that you think there are no areas in yourself, that don’t need some cleaning up. We all have these areas, and it is an inside job to recognize these wounded places in ourselves, and to bring them into the light. Then, as we uncover some pain, we can ask others for guidance and help, and we can be there for each other, to help to heal each other, instead of just acting out our pain, in unconscious, reckless desperation. No human leader is going to heal you. You don’t need someone outside of yourself to heal you. You don’t need conditions outside of yourself, in order to be healed. People think if a certain person is in office, or if a certain agenda is being carried out, then they will be healed and happy. On a personal level, people think that if they have a certain level of money, or a certain relationship, then they will be happy. It doesn’t work that way. Happiness is an inside job. Those of us who believe in God, believe that God helps us with our healing, but there are no conditions outside of ourselves, that are required for God to help us. We don’t have to be a certain religion, or be at a certain level of “good” for God to help us. That is what is meant by God’s grace. God never leaves us. It is my belief that God is inside each and every one of us, deeply imbedded in our souls, quietly, calmly, peacefully sitting in the deepest seats of our hearts. Let’s find that part of our hearts, and ask to be guided to healing. It is our sacred duty to ourselves, to our families and to our nation, to heal.

Healed individuals lead to healed nations. Our nation needs to heal. Let us each do our own part. Let’s keep the highest vision of this United States, alive and well, by each of us doing our own part, in our own lives. It is simple: Pass on love to others, and pass on love to yourself. Heal your pain, and pass on love. Pass on love.

Patience is a Virtue

“How many opportunities of being happy do you miss by giving all of your attention to what brings you angst?” – (Valencia, Twitter)

I got a little triggered yesterday. I went on to my Nextdoor app (which is social media for your local neighborhoods, often used to share local news or to sell items or to report lost pets, etc.) and the thread that was bursting at the seams, considering our local neighborhood news, was the angst over not being able to get a vaccine yet. In Florida, anyone over the age of 65, is now eligible to get a vaccine to prevent the coronavirus, if it is available. And the system for getting the vaccine is flawed. The phone lines are jammed. The technology for setting the appointments blew up, and people were having hissy fits the likes you’ve never seen. I am sure that there were a lot of people, while writing hysterical commentary on the Nextdoor app, were having their blood pressures go through the roof. And let’s remember, the vaccine just got approved for public use, on December 14th.

It’s okay to be upset. The system for getting the vaccine certainly has to be improved, and it will be. Just like how obtaining masks, or getting coronavirus tests, or even, acquiring toilet paper, in the beginning of this pandemic was next to mission impossible, I now own a pile of masks in every color, shape and form, I can obtain toilet paper at any level of softness that I want, and I could get a coronavirus test today, from more than one place, and know the results in fifteen minutes. This is America. We are inventive. We are forward thinking. We are capitalists. It is in everyone’s best interest to get the vaccine, especially in the interests of the moneyed powers that be. Therefore, once the kinks are worked out, I have no doubts that everyone who wants the vaccine, will get one, sooner than any of us think.

We are like a football team who is playing against a team that we have never played before. We are having to make new plays in the middle of the game, and then we are having to make adjustments when our plays don’t work. We are having to play with, and against players, who have all different level of skills, and unique personal agendas. There are going to be a lot of mistakes. There are going to be a lot of unfair plays, and a lot of missed calls. Some people have been seriously hurt, and others still are going to get hurt. At the end of the game, the coaches are really going to have to study the tape, to see what went right and what went wrong, in order to play a better, more solid game in the future. Some of these coaches may be shown to be underperforming, and they will be replaced. Still, we are going to win this game against the coronavirus. The momentum is with us in a major way. We have a vaccine. We have more than one vaccine . . . . . in less than a year!!!!

During the long year of 2020, we often claimed that the good that came out of our experience, is that we were learning the value of patience. We we learning not to take the people, things, and experiences that we were blessed with for granted, by acting entitled. We claimed to have learned how strong and able, we really are, in tough circumstances. How quickly we forget our “lessons” sometimes! We will prevail if we keep calm and carry on using safe, social distancing practices just a little while longer. Let’s be team players and see this game through to victory.

Book Nerd

In the beginning of the year, I download books to my Kindle like they are candy. On top of the books that have been so kindly gifted to me, I gift myself about 100 more. (okay, that is an exaggeration, but I do get particularly book hungry at the beginning of the year, and my appetite is voracious) During most of the year, I methodically read books, one at a time, but during the beginning of the year, I dive into my books like its a smorgasbord of ideas and words and interesting stories. My pile of books becomes like a plate which you have filled up at a “serve yourself, all you can eat” banquet or buffet, with all of the books piled up, and running and oozing into each other, and thus, I can’t remember what flavor or tidbit belongs to which brilliant piece of literature. I get overwhelmed and delighted with everything that sits before me, and I want to devour it all, and fast. I am not sure why I do this. I find myself reading too fast and not always savoring the different styles of writing and genres. Perhaps there is more downtime around the holidays that I want to use up, or maybe I am always looking for some inspiration to help me with my “theme of the year.” Or maybe it is just that I love to read, and fresh starts remind me to do what I really love to do, in my life.

I saw on Twitter that Stephen King recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. That interesting and inspiring tidbit, spurred me to look up more information about Stephen King, and to order his book, On Writing A Memoir of the Craft. Honestly, I have never read any of Stephen King’s fiction books because I am a huge scared-y cat. I’ve seen maybe three Stephen King movies, and those viewings were decades ago, and they still terrorize me. I wrote off “all things scary”, quite a bit a time ago. My flight/fight response is very dramatic and intense, and it is not healthy for me to go through it, or for anyone else to have to witness it. Still, in just reading the first few chapters of this book, I realize how much I have missed out on. Stephen King is a master. His writing is so engaging, it is almost an out of body experience.

I read everywhere. I read advertisements. I read people’s faces and energy and emotions. I read quirky signs in stores. I find a lot of good short reads on Twitter. Something that I read on Twitter recently, is a question, which is really a tool that I plan to use all of the year of 2021, until I forget about it. The Twitter blurb said: Am I passing on love, or am I passing on pain? And I thought to myself, on the flip side of this, when I am experiencing dialog or reactions or actions, from other people, is what they are doing: passing on love or passing on pain? When I am kind, generous, paying attention and listening, thoughtful, using direct communication and exuding optimism, these actions are coming from a place of love. When I am sarcastic, cynical, mean, passive aggressive, violent, judge-y, tossing out guilt trips, or being manipulative or controlling, these actions are coming from a place of pain, and it is my job to filter through those feelings of pain, to heal myself, so that I don’t act from a place of pain, for most of my time. Me, and my relationships, will be healthier for that honest introspection. At the same time, if I use that same kind of consciousness and mindfulness, when noticing other people’s actions and reactions, I can keep a level of detachment, and thus not personalize these interactions so much. When a person is being cruel or hurtful, that is coming from a deep rooted pain within themselves. It is not my job to fix that other person’s pain. It’s not even possible to do so. Only that person can heal their own pain, but it helps me to see the angry person, who I am dealing with, in a more empathetic light. It also helps me to see with whom I need to have better boundaries with, in my life. Finally, that question is a really good question to ask ourselves, about how we treat our own selves. Am I passing on love (to myself) or am I passing on pain (to myself)? How do I speak to myself? How do I nurture my body? Do I protect myself from toxic people and experiences? Do I treat myself to the things that speak to my deepest, most intuitive sense of self? How I interact with myself is often deeply entwined with how I interact with others. This simple question brings a level of mindfulness and consideration to all interactions, which can really help to lift up the amount of peace in anyone’s daily life.

I think that is why I love to read so much. There is great, great power in words. An eleven word question that I casually read on Twitter, may be a life changer this year for me, if I consciously remind myself of the question, and I utilize it. Someone once told me that you are the culmination of the people you meet, the experiences you have, and the books that you read. I believe that this could be true. Perhaps my book reading frenzy in the beginning of my new year, is just part of those resolutions or intentions that we all make to ourselves in the beginning of the year, in the hopes of becoming a better version of own selves. If the books that I read, are a part of who I become, I want to find and to explore and to discover as many different facets of myself, and my living experience as I can, before I no longer have the ability to do so. Books help to navigate me, to myself, and that is why books are meant to savor.

Monday Fun-Day

Image

Good morning! I’m feeling a bit “slow on the go” and perhaps a tad irreverent, this morning. In the beginning of the pandemic, I shared links to websites which I had found, that were counting the numbers of coronavirus cases, in different parts of the United States. Today, I am happy to share a link to a website, which shows the number of vaccines administered, in each state. It is updated daily, and it shows the percentage of people in your state who are currently vaccinated against the coronavirus. This is a number that I am happy to see go up! Here is the website:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

Happy First Monday of the year! May it be the best Monday of your life!

Soul Sunday

The New Year lies before you
Like a spotless tract of snow
Be careful how you tread on it
For every mark will show.

Good morning. My regular readers know that Sundays are dedicated to poetry. Poetry is emotion in free form. We think of poetry in just written form, but honestly how we live our lives is a form of poetry, unique to each of us. Today, I choose not to write a poem of my own, but I did some exploring on the internet to find New Year’s poems that spoke to me. I have published them here. Please feel free to share your favorite poems, written by you or others in my Comments section. Have a blessed, easy, dreamy day before we enter the first full week of 2021.

To the New Year

BY W. S. MERWIN

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

Burning the Old Year

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   
lists of vegetables, partial poems.   
Orange swirling flame of days,   
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   
only the things I didn’t do   
crackle after the blazing dies.