“To me, age is really just a number, some kind of label. I feel more like an ageless soul in an aging body. And it’s all okay.” – Hilde, age 58 from the book, And Bloom:The Art of Aging Unapologetically by Denise Boomkens
Our souls are ageless, but our bodies aren’t. Our ageless souls are housed in our bodies. Lately I’ve been letting situations which are out of my control, eat at me. And I feel it in my body. It is time to reel it all in. I want my ageless soul to experience a long, interesting life in this body that houses it. Thus I must take time to nurture my body, so that my ageless soul exists in a nurturing space. I must reel in my mind from continuing with obsessive, negative thoughts that do not add to the health of my body, nor to the quality of my life. My ageless soul deserves a sound mind and a healthy body, in order to experience an amazing quality of life. These things that I can do, in order to care for my body (rest, exercise, nutrition), and these things that I can do for my mind (mindfulness, prayer, meditation), are things that I do have control of, and so for the sake of my beautiful, ageless soul, I will put my focus on these things in which I do have control, and I will trust that the rest will take care of itself. And it’s all okay.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Boundaries aren’t only for what people do to you, what about what you do to yourself? What about behaviors you have that keep harming you, what about habits that destroy your mental health and well-being? Sometimes it’s you that you gotta stop. Remember to place self-boundaries. That includes stopping yourself from going back to who keeps hurting you. Place limits with yourself.” – @SayItValencia, Twitter
This quote is a good one. The topic of boundaries is an important one to explore, and to revisit during the holiday season. Boundaries aren’t about controlling what other people do. Boundaries are putting limits on what is acceptable to you, and what you are exposed to, at any given time. As it is said, “Boundaries say ‘no.’ Standards say ‘yes.’ ”
The holidays tend to be a time of excess: excess of emotion, excess of stuff, excess of nostalgia, excess of invitations, excess of eating and drinking, excess of expectations, excess noise and commotion, excess of spending, excess of lights, excess of sensations. Sometimes you need to be William, that guy from my favorite commercial of the season. It’s L.L. Bean’s “Be An Outsider” advertisement, where William takes a break from all of the holiday hubbub and walks outside, into the cool crisp air, walking on the snow with his dog, and he gazes at the natural, beautiful, cleansing light of the moon. William ends the commercial with “And this is everything.” William obviously has a love and a fondness for the people and the camaraderie and the tradition and the excitement going on in the house, but he is wise enough to know when he needs a break, and perspective. William knows his boundaries, and he puts them in place.
Recently, I was going through one of my old journals and I found a daily mantra that I was utilizing at the time. I think that it is a good one to bring back: “I will go through this one day harmlessly. I will hurt no one in my thoughts or actions, including myself.” Be an outsider. Be true to yourself this holiday season.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
My favorite story from the weekend was of the Japanese World Cup soccer fans keeping up their tradition of cleaning up garbage in the stands. They have traditional blue garbage bags that they take out and use to clean up garbage as a sign of respect for taking care of others’ property. The Japanese team members left their locker room absolutely spotless as well, including leaving origami figures and a thank you note to the host country, Qatar. Apparently, this wonderful quality is catching on, and many other teams are following suit. What a wonderful example of courtesy, respect and connection to others! Apparently the worldwide attention that this has brought, has made many Japanese people amused, proud, but also a little embarrassed. This trait of tidiness and respect is something that is so “normalized” in their culture, that they are finding themselves a bit self-conscious to having it be brought to light. I love this. Sometimes wonderful traits of people need to be noticed and emulated, especially when these traits are just part of a person’s being, and not part of an attention grabbing “show.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Robert Frost says it best:
My emotion has found my thought, and my thought has found my words in the poem which I wrote this morning (see below). What are the thoughts and the words of your own emotions today? Write a poem in order to find out. You will most likely be surprised.
WHO ARE YOU?
Who are you?
Are you what your friends say? Which friend?
And does it really matter what they say, in the end?
Who are you? Are you young, or are you old?
That answer is more about the judger’s age, I’m told.
Who are you?
Do you know? Do you rely on others’ to tell you who you may be?
Or do you sit with yourself, and learn about yourself organically?
Who are you?
The answer to this question is only for you to know.
The rest is all conjecture, projection, and changes as the wind does blow.
Hi friends. I slept in. I am fatigued. This year has been full of big changes for our own family and for those whom we love, and I think that this is all catching up on me right now. So, in conservation of time and energy, I am going to reprint one of my more popular blog posts which tends to trend at this time of year (which is fitting!). Here it is:
‘Tis the season!! Happy Black Friday, although this year it seems like it has been Black Friday for weeks on end now. I hope that you are getting lots of good bargains and having fun doing it, on this fabulous Friday (the best day of the week.)
On Fridays, I try to step away from the “f-word”, i.e. “Feelings.” On Fridays on the blog, I discuss the stuff which I like such as products, books, songs, websites, etc. Please check out my previous Friday posts for more good stuff.
My favorite for today is rareESSENCE aromatherapy inhalers. Smell might be my favorite sense that we have, and these inhalers are wonderful. I have been using my rareESSENCE aromatherapy DEFENSE inhaler, since I purchased it in New York City in late October, and I haven’t been sick despite being on a few filled flights, at packed college fraternity parties, crowded bars and restaurants, hospitals, sold out movie theaters, and being around more people in the last 3-4 weeks than I have been around in months. I don’t know if this inhaler has anything to do with my wellness, but it sure smells great! And great smells have always done wonders for my wellness.
I hope that you enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving. May the wonders of the season be more comforting and captivating than ever before, for all of us.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Thanksgiving is the comfort food of holidays. Thanksgiving is warm slippers, a hot mug of coffee, non-glitzy, down-to-earth, deep sigh of relief, wholesome goodness. Thanksgiving is a cozy, fuzzy blanket, wonderful smells wafting in the air, the fading beautiful colors of a summer well spent. Thanksgiving is easy laughter, easy going energy, a building of anticipation of a fabulous feast and an exciting holiday season ahead. Thanksgiving marks the start of the end of a year. It is the awards show of the year, where the award receivers are looking back at all which the year has brought to them, and thanking everything and everyone who deserves to be thanked for helping to get the award receivers to this point of evolution and elevation in their own lives. Thanksgiving is the joy of a parade, the celebration of man’s best friend, and the communion and camaraderie of fans of the same teams. Thanksgiving is the reminder that there are few feelings better than the overwhelming reassurance of all of our blessings constantly provided to us. Gratefulness is probably the largest ingredient of love, and Thanksgiving makes this fact abundantly clear.
As I say (and I feel deeply) every year, thank you friends and readers for supporting and being a vital part of my blog. I love this blog and so by extension, I love you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Now go get going on your turkey . . . . . See you tomorrow!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I haven’t been a wonderful aunt. I love our nieces and our nephews, but I haven’t been a vital part of any of their lives. I’ve sent cards and gifts and loved on them during infrequent visits, but I don’t have a close, intimate relationship with any of them. This wasn’t something that I did, or chose to do consciously. I have my excuses: a large family of my own with a special needs child, geographic distance, sibling rivalries and distant relationships with our siblings, etc. But, whatever. I haven’t gone out of my way to be the kind of aunt whom I would like to be. This is not something that I am proud of, but in the words of my husband, when I confessed this fact to him recently is this: “It’s never too late.” It’s never too late.
And it isn’t too late. It’s only in the last five years or so, that both my husband and I have leaned heavily on the wisdom, and the love, and the strength, and the kindness of our own aunts, while dealing with various health issues and declines of our surviving parents. I am in my fifties and I do not know what I would have done without our aunts, especially in this last decade. Our aunts have allowed us to be children again, in a time when we still (surprisingly) desperately need “the adults” in our lives. They have given us the kind of unconditional love and support and comfort that only maternal, elder figures are intrinsically able to do, and I am forever grateful to all of them. Aunts, I love you and I respect you immensely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Elephant tribes are mostly made of adult female elephants and the babies. Bull elephants are kicked out of the tribe when they reach early adulthood. Elephant mothers can rely on her “sisters” to take care of her babies, when she is not able to do so. Elephant mothers know that “her sisters” will protect her babies fiercely like they are her own. Elephant babies know that the tribe is full of female protectors who are helping their mothers to raise them. The elephant babies know that they have a strong, divine, feminine support surrounding and encircling them, to ensure their safety and well-being. An elephant tribe is mostly focused on protecting and nurturing their young. And elephant babies take a long time to grow up. This system is called “allomothering.” All of the female elephants in a tribe are “allomothers.”
I guess that I always knew that my husband and I, and our own babies, had this female tribe encircling us, but they have always given us the grace of space and understanding. Our aunts have always given us the respect and the autonomy to be our own people. Our aunts have given us an uncomplicated love. And I can continue this tradition with my own nieces and nephews. I can surround my own nieces and nephews with a force field of love, no matter how far away. I hope that our nieces and nephews know that no matter what and no matter when, they will always be the babies of my tribe, and I am willing, and I am able, and I am proud to do my duties of protection, nurturing, and support, no matter when that time comes for me to stand tall, with my ears flapping and my feet stomping and my head charging. I’ve had amazing examples to learn from, and so I must continue the tradition. It’s never too late.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I am home. I feel so utterly grateful to be home. There is no better feeling in the world than the sanctuary and the familiarity of home. My husband and I just experienced perhaps the most emotionally draining experience of our lives, and now we are home. Dorothy had it right. There is no place like home.
It feels good to get a little bit of comfort and groundedness before the hoopla of the holidays comes into our lives. The holidays can be like your favorite, dramatic, over-the-top friend. This friend is so much fun, offers so much to do, brings so much stuff, and so much activity, and so much glitz and glamor, and so much emotion and nostalgia, so much, so much, so much . . . . . you love the crazy storm that your manic friend brings into your life, but every once in a while you need to duck for cover. You have to just melt into the sanctum of the solidness and the stillness of being home, in your own comfortable spot in the world where your energy fits just right, and gets recharged. At home, your energy gets revved up for yet another event in which your Holiday Homie gets you whisked into, during the season. We all are lucky to have the holidays to celebrate, and we are all equally lucky to have our home places to fall into, in order to rest and to revive and to regain ourselves. There is no place like home for rest, for revitalization and for the ability to find our way back to our true, core selves again.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I am feeling nostalgic. When I was a little girl, we sometimes would take the trolley into downtown Pittsburgh, PA around Christmas time. We would get red pistachios which would dye our fingers red, as my sister and I would try to fit them on our hands so that the shells would look like brightly painted red fingernails. We then would go from window to window to look at the magical, wondrous displays at all of the major department stores as the snow softly fell on our wooly winter coats. It was such a special time . . . .
