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Friday’s Frolics

+ I was listening to a podcast yesterday that suggested that instead of solving our problems, we have a tendency to “change” our problems. So, we allow ourselves to get distracted with other people’s problems, or with other smaller problems in our own lives, without tackling the biggest problems, which are wreaking havoc in our own lives. It’s a neat little trick that we play on ourselves. It’s the very definition of codependency to focus on taking care of, or “fixing” others, instead of what is ours to take care of and fix – ourselves. What are you avoiding in your own life, with the premise that you are too busy dealing with other problems (and often, other people’s problems)? What are you trying to distract yourself from, instead of facing the problem head on and looking for ways to solve it?

+ My husband was talking to an independently wealthy man at work who said that he thinks that he is a better employee because he chooses to work. He does not have to work, for money. My husband said that he sees that the opposite is true, too. If you have to work to provide for your family, and there is no other way, you will hustle like nobody’s business. So, what I take from this conversation, is that employees from both extremes will make your best employees. Self-motivated workers who are doing the job for the intrinsic qualities that it gives to their lives, and self-motivated workers who are desperate to provide a nice life for themselves and their families. The shared quality is “self-motivated.” And what I have heard from every business owner I have ever met, is that finding good, reliable, steady employees is the hardest part of the business. If I were a business owner, I would suss out what is deeply motivating (or not) to a potential employee.

+ And a quote that struck me from my readings this week: “Sometimes you have to end things before they end you.”

+ Okay, I have heard from many of you that you miss my Favorite Things Friday posts, so I will give you one of my favorites for today. I bought a small Tibetan singing bowl set for around $10 on Amazon and I strike it three times every morning. It soothes me. I love to hear the sound of it. I consider this to be my own personal reset button, to start my day. And even “the less woo-woo than me, i.e. my entire family” have stated that they like the sound of it, too. Enjoy your senses. This is the real meaning of being sensual.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

(((California)))

I know that I have a few loyal California readers, and I want to let you know that my heart and prayers are with you, and all whom you love. These last six months or so, in the United States particularly, it has been beyond proven that we are no match for the elements. May you all be safe and serene and find glimmers of hope in this horrible situation. If you get a chance, please let us know that you are okay.

Yesterday, marked the first real day of the new year for me. It was the first time I had my house completely to myself in over a month. (and as an introvert who craves solitude, this was deeply delicious) I went straight into a nesting instinct on steroids, and I cleaned every linen on every single bed in the house. I had saved our bed for the last, and so, way past our bedtime, our mattress pad was still drying in the drier. Therefore, I made up a makeshift pile of blankets on our bed and I told my husband that we were “camping.” We officially started the new year, “camping” in our own bed.

I no longer write a regular Favorite Things Friday blog post, but I do want to recommend a couple of fun little gadgets. The first one is one that I bought for myself, for my birthday:

Solareye Bird Feeder with Camera – This bird feeder is a joy. I am spying on all of my hungry little feathered friends with a close-up view. I’ve only had it up for a few weeks, and I have already “collected” 12 different species of birds, all captured on video, for me to view whenever I need a smile. This feeder turns “birds-eye view” on its heels! The Carolina Chickadee has proven to be my most frequent visitor so far. This hungry little guy has shown up 32 times already.

Also, my eldest son and his fiancee’ got us an Aura Digital Frame for Christmas and it is amazing! It was super easy to set up (with their help, of course. They’re young!) The best part of this frame is that all of us in the family can download pictures to a shared Aura App any time that we desire, and then the pictures (and videos) pop up on our frame. It’s such a lovely surprise to see a new picture of loved ones that we weren’t expecting, to suddenly pop up. I have owned other digital frames before, but the Aura takes things to a new level. I highly recommend it.

Spend those Amazon gift cards that you got for Christmas, on something good, that will continually bring a smile to your face. You can’t go wrong with either of these gadgets. Please share your gadget recommendations in my Comments, too.

Shifting gears, this was the daily peace quote:

“We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?“

– Jack Kornfield

If you aren’t sure what you deeply value, look at what you do, and what you choose, in your everyday life. That is what you are showing yourself, and the world, what you truly value. If you are feeling unhappy or unsettled, chances are, you aren’t living your true values. Take some time for self-awareness at this beginning of this new year. If you value love, health, family, friends, security, using your talents, truth, joy, travel, service, nature, knowledge, hope, peace, loyalty, beauty, kindness, progress, adventure, faith etc. are your actions reflecting these values?

Okay, before I close, here’s another big hug to my readers from the beautiful state of California! May the best of today, be the worst of tomorrow for all of us in 2025. Onwards and upwards . . . . It’s all going to be okay.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

9

I don’t know much about numerology, but I have read a few articles about 2025 being a “9” year. All of this year’s digits added together equal the number nine. In numerology, a nine year, indicates “conclusion.” It indicates the end of a cycle, suggesting many endings and many new beginnings. The last “9” year we experienced was 2016. This gives me pause. For me, 2016 was a pivotal, tumultuous, eye-opening, exciting, yet upsetting year. It was a year that I had to make some really difficult decisions about my life going forward. I now, retrospectively, see just how much I grew, in just that one year. I see clearly now that 2016 indeed marked an ending point for me, and a beginning point of a new era of my life. If I am honest and I go all of the way back to 2007, I can see, too, how that particular year rounded out an era of my life, and showed indications of big changes ahead. Here is what some numerologists are saying that we should expect from a “9” year:

“This is the year to develop self-esteem and spiritual awakening. The goal is to become a version of yourself who is less bothered by nuisances and more moved by beauty and love.” (Credit: Today show)


“What can you expect during a 9 year? In addition to being a year of completion and tying up loose ends, the study of numerology suggests that “unhappy memories often arise so they can be healed” during this time.” (Credit: People.com)

“The 9 YEAR is the end of an era. ‘Going back’ to claim your future. 

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. ~T.S. Eliot (Credit: Christine DeLorey)

“Personal Year 9 in numerology is a period of endings, healing, and preparation for new beginnings. It calls for reflection, release, and transformation as we bid farewell to the past nine years and step into a new cycle of growth and discovery.” (Credit: Astrology Realm) 

It’s not lost on me that our middle son graduates from medical school this year, and our youngest, our daughter, will start her senior year of college this fall. Our four children’s formal schooling is coming to an end. Two of our children are engaged to be married. We are indeed concluding one era and entering into another era of the life of our family.

Does any of this ring true to you? What’s coming to a conclusion in your own life? What do you need let go of? What is about to start for you? Whether you buy into numerology, or not, these are all questions that can bring you some valuable insight about yourself and your life going forward.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Transition

Happy New Year, friends. I hope that you had a lovely holiday season. Ours was beautiful, poignant, painful, joyful and full of change and expansion. It is clearly apparent now that our family is growing up and growing out, in all different interesting and fun directions, but our years and years of “same old/same old” when it comes to our holiday traditions have definitely come to pass. Our children all have wonderful long term significant others (our two eldest sons are engaged to be married) and so my husband and I have had to learn to share and to embrace change. We have had to learn to create new traditions, and to feel our way to these new traditions. We have also lost loved ones along the way, and this Christmas was no exception. Sadly, we found out that our Ralphie, our beautiful Labrador retriever, our last true “family dog” (our eldest two sons were still in college when we brought Ralphie home), had incurable and painful lymphoma and so we made the choice to have Ralphie euthanized at home with Lap of Love (this service came highly recommended to us by our friends. If you ever come to having to make this unfortunate choice, they were wonderful.) I suppose the only upside of this situation happening at Christmastime is that we all were with him, to say our goodbyes.

I know what I truly love when I do a search on my blog. I searched up “Ralphie” before I wrote this post and there were eight pages of blog posts to look through. Some of those excerpts are seen below. When I kissed Ralphie good-bye, I had this vision of him starting to cross the Rainbow Bridge, but then turning and jumping off of it, into beautiful crystal clear water and swimming to his beautiful, big heart’s content. Thank you for everything, my big, beautiful, lovable fur friend. Until we see you again . . . .

“Two years ago, when our elderly rescue spaniel/corgi mix passed, we decided we wanted a new puppy. We had moved to Florida and the kids really wanted a dog who would love the water. So, in researching, we decided we would get a Labrador Retriever, a big family dog which is known to be a water lover. My daughter and I picked out Ralphie, a Dudley yellow lab puppy and he truly is the most loving, funny, zany, adventurous, loyal dog that we have ever had the pleasure to live with. I now understand why they are such a popular breed. They are big dogs, so people are wary of them, yet they are the sweetest dogs alive. Ralphie hardly ever barks. Labrador Retrievers love everybody and all other dogs. They are curious, obedient, eager to please, and super smart. Ralphie turns our Roomba, the X-box and some light switches, on and off, and these are the tricks that he taught himself to do. Ralphie hates when anyone in the family is upset and he will do anything that he can to make you feel better. And water loving – oh my goodness, Ralphie is part dog/part fish. He swims in our pool more than any of us. He treads water, he puts his whole head in, and he leaps in the pool for his toys, endlessly. His joy for life is absolutely contagious! He brings a smile to my heart just thinking about him.”

“Ralphie is over-the-top, in your face exuberance and intensity. He is smart as a whip, lead hopelessly by his bear-sized nose, and constantly on the move, unless he is entirely passed out. Still he keeps his fervor going by swimming in his sleep. When he gives kisses, they are full, wet and all encompassing. His huge tongue is like a washcloth you would use to wash your car, and with a few passionate licks, he has managed to cover your whole face, your ears and your neck. He is not at all protective, he would definitely have the “flight” tendency in a “fight or flight” scenario. He is so absolutely and completely in-tuned to us, his family and to himself. Every night, he comes to the couch, where my husband and I are sitting, to remind us that it is his bedtime by lying his head on one of our knees.”

“Our Labrador retriever, Ralphie, spent a lot of time with us in the pool this weekend. He’s now an interesting shade of yellow-green. Ralphie is definitely “that blonde kid on the swim team.” You can’t miss the fact that he loves to swim.”

“Limp Tail Syndrome

They say it comes from swimming too much,

It came from doing your greatest love.

It stole your wag. It stole your grin.

Your body can’t smile in your wiggly way

with the big wet soppy toy in your mouth.

It will pass. All things do. But now

Your body just grimaces and growls,

And your tail hangs limp.

You wear your emotions on your whole body,

Not just a sleeve. You don’t hide anything.

You are the embodiment of life, breath and love,

And joy and pain and listless agitation.

You are so fully you, always and ever.

Soon your sprightly tail will wag again.

Easy, light, high and fast and free and happy.

Your tail never hangs limp for long.

It’s not in your nature to be kept down.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Holy Days

I like Christmas Eve best of the holidays because it tends to be the quietest time of the season. It is gray here today and typically, I don’t love gray days. Florida spoils everyone with its almost constant sunshine and so usually, I almost feel affronted when an occasional gray day appears, but today, I truly feel grateful for it. It is the closest thing that we’ll get to a snowy Christmas Eve. It is a quiet gray morning and it feels just right.

I read today that “holidays” really means “holy days.” We are currently experiencing a really spiritual time of the year. No matter what you celebrate or don’t celebrate, what religious/spiritual practices you do, or you do not partake in, there is a “holiness” about an ending of another year of our lives. Holiness means sacred. It means spiritually perfect and pure. There is a deep holiness to this time of slowing down and reflection and insight and reminders of all of the awe that comes from being alive. I read a quote this morning from the songwriter/poet, 77-year-old Patti Smith, that said something like, despite every negative thing that brings her down, going on around us, in the world and even in her own personal life, she still loves to be alive. She still loves to create. She still loves to do her work. If we are honest with ourselves, almost all of us, deeply cling to life. Maybe despite all of our grumblings, the truth is, most of us love to live.

I get really quiet at this time of year. I tend to go deeply inward. Sometimes this feels awkward and scary and I know that it puzzles those who are closest to me, and who also intimately know my wild, wacky, free-and-easy, cheerful loud sides. For me, these “holy days” are a time of absorption and sorting and processing everything (and all of the feels that come with that “everything”) which I have experienced in another whole year of my life. It is a time of deciding what I really need to part from, with all of the more accumulation of everything that occurred over another year of my life, and also what I need to hold on to, and to keep, as sacred. It is a personal system that requires stillness and awareness and vulnerability, and that is why I like the quietness of Christmas Eve.

I am wishing all of you the most lovely things in which these “holy days” have to offer. I am wishing for all of us the ability to surrender to what gifts this unique season has to offer to each of us – the kinds of unexpected gifts that may take quite some time to unwrap, and to ponder, and to assimilate into the new year. Happy Holy Days. May blessings abound.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Seven Things

This summarized list below is from an interview Kelly Corrigan had with Happy/Crappy author, Kate Bowler, and it is just too good not to keep the whole thing, in its quoted entirety, in the annals of my thought museum, Adulting – Second Half:

“1. The yeses we give too freely become the weights we carry unwillingly. 

2. Mastering our emotions isn’t about feeling them less, it’s about moving through them faster.

3. No one will ever care about our tiny concerns the way our parents did.  

4. Family disasters often become family folklore—and thank goodness for that.

5. Guard the hope of the young.  

6. There is a world of difference between observing feelings and being consumed by them. 

7. Purpose protects against loneliness.”

I’m sorry that I’ve been away from writing the blog for a while. Today is the first day that I don’t have something really time-consuming on the schedule to do, in a while. Today marks the first day of this holiday season in which I can focus entirely on our immediate family’s Christmas celebrations going forward. (hmmm, apparently I was giving away my “yeses” too freely . . . . see number 1. of the above list)

Number 2. of the list above is something that I was just reiterating to my husband when I told him that our youngest son would be going to his girlfriend’s parents for Christmas. Our Christmases are recently starting to go through rapid evolutions after years and years of same ol’/same ol’. Our four children are all adults. They all have serious significant others (whom we all, thankfully, like/love very much). We have to share our children. And we know this logically. And we support this with our values of wanting authentic relationships based on healthy mutual affection and not based on guilt trips and control. But still, those little pangs of nostalgia and sadness sometimes pop up. Our immature, kindergartner brat child persona doesn’t really like to have to share. At all. So, I told my husband, we must feel our feelings, notice them, and then let them move on through. It’s interesting to notice that when you don’t try to repress, deny, hastily react, or lay judgment on your feelings, how quickly they really do pass.

Number 3. of the list makes me smile because my husband, in particular, is really patient and empathetic when listening to any of our family’s litany of complaints about work, school, unfair policies, customer ‘service’ experiences, crappy products made in China, etc. etc. (I think that I lose patience with this tedium a little bit faster than he does, but I guarantee none of our kids would dare to bore anyone else with their “tiny concerns” that are safely left fallen on their loving parents’ burning ears)

Number 4. is so relatable. This Thanksgiving we experienced a trial in which right in the middle of preparing and cooking Thanksgiving dinner (a valiant group effort that involved our son’s new significant other, who is a dedicated, professional foodie), we realized that our brand new oven had broken. The turkey was getting lukewarm at best. We remedied the whole situation by trucking our half-made meal to a different kitchen to complete the process. At the time, I was frustrated (no, I was more like ragingly pissed), sad, embarrassed, flabbergasted, bummed, annoyed, shocked (etc. etc.) and so was the rest of the family, but we collected ourselves pretty quickly. We all remained calm and cool (on the outside anyway) and by the end of a delicious feast, we were already laughing about the situation which will probably remain in our family lore for a long, long time. (and yes, we got a new oven which was covered by its warranty – all’s well that ends well)

Number 5. on the list reminded me of my experience yesterday when my daughter and I spent the entire day at the Salvation Army helping people load their angel Christmas presents into their cars. Let me start from the beginning with this story: For many years my husband and I have bought presents for the children in our city, from adopting and shopping for children from various Christmas angel ornaments, plucked from a tree at his workplace. Me, in my typical “Curious Kelly” mode, started peppering my husband with questions: “I wonder how this works? Does our angel actually get the presents that we give them or do they spread them around? How many angels are there, do you think? . . . . .” He finally said to me, “Well, you could volunteer and find out.” Truth. It hits hard, but he was absolutely right. And so I write to you this morning, with a really, really sore body (many, many, many generous souls made for many, many, many heavy, heavy Santa bags) and with a bigger heart which grew three sizes yesterday. What could be more beautiful than being part of guarding “the hope of the young?” . . . Well, you could volunteer and find out.

Number 6. relates to Number 2. on the list. Feel your feels, but don’t wallow in them. Accept them. Hug them. But then wave them on their way! Don’t indulge. Every feel deserves its own time in the sun, and they all circle back, from time to time. Keep ’em flowing. (think of feeling your feelings, like a long chain of graduates shaking the principal’s hand. Let each feeling have its moment, and then move to the next feeling with your full, undivided attention. David Brooks says that we should “Treat attention as an on/off switch, not a dimmer. All or nothing.”)

Number 7. I think that purpose might be the most important thing that we can ever possess in our lives, but I also think that we complicate and we confuse the concept of “purpose” way, way too much. We tend to make it too “lofty” and unattainable. Purpose can be as simple as engaging in the gratitude of the miracles of nature that surround of us, every single day. As I grow older, I believe that my purpose now is to be the living embodiment and reassurance to those younger than me, that all is well. That they are going to be okay, no matter what. It is my purpose to live the idea that life is wonderful. Life is meant to be shared and savored and to be experienced in awe. My purpose is to be their comfort, that comes from my earned wisdom from living many years and many different stages of life. It’s not at all lonely to know that I can fulfill my purpose every single day, in everyday places like checkout lines, and traffic lights, and even at home. When I sit in peace and “wise-knowing” and joy, I add this magnanimous energy to the uplifting of this world, and then, those around me sense it and feel it. What could be more purposeful than adding peace and joy to the experience of our shared world?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Submittance

Yesterday was the first day this December that I truly felt “in the holiday spirit”. I don’t honestly fault myself for this slow start to experiencing the joy of it all. The truth is, I love my everyday life and my routines. I love spontaneity. Sometimes I feel like the holidays hijack all of my time and mindspace, and for that matter, even my living space, with bulky, red and green, glitter and glitz and a miles long to-do list. Sometimes I feel trapped into traditions and experiences that I really don’t want to partake in, but then I feel ashamed for not wanting to do them. And in all fairness, this shame is self inflicted. No one is forcing anything on me.

This year, I have met more people who are the very definition of Christmas elves, than I have encountered in a long time. I gave blood the other day, and the technician was a literally glowing with Christmas cheer. She told me that she sings Christmas carols all year long. She told me every creative position, every single night that she puts the Elf on the Shelf in, for her daughter, with pure unadulterated glee. A bank teller who waited on me the other day, recounted how she first found out the truth about Santa (and then lamented about how many poor children now find out about Santa from the internet which wasn’t around when she was a kid), but she never told her parents, because they all love Christmas more than anything in this world. The teller appeared to be in her thirties now and she was telling me all about the Christmas Hallmark special she couldn’t wait to get home to watch. The most obvious, vocal “Kamala Harris” supporter couple in our local neighborhood, has not let the election results get them down, even one bit. Every inch of their large house (and boat to boot) are covered in bright, cheerful lights.

I’ve been a little grumbly, honestly. I think that there for a little while, I was secretly chanting to myself with a sigh, “Okay, let’s just get this over with.” I never rained on the Christmas elves’ parades whom I have been encountering on a regular basis. That would not be cool. I can fake it ’til I make it with the best of them. But, I felt envious and curious at the same time. What makes someone so completely and utterly enthralled with this time of year? What makes someone wish that Christmas would last all year long?

Nonetheless, yesterday, I think that I quieted my inner protest and rebellion, and I surrendered to it all. My daughter and her boyfriend, hung all of our beloved ornaments on our tree, while listening to carols and my daughter recounted the backstories (trips, and events, and pets that have already crossed the rainbow bridge) that accompany each ornament. They enjoyed a sweet dinner with my husband and I, and we all finished dinner with trying and rating the latest jelly from our 2024 Bon Mamman advent calendar. Earlier in the day, I ran out to the road in my curlers to make sure that our recycling collection crew got their Christmas tips, and their smiles made my day.

That’s the true point of the season, right? Surrender. Surrender to the mystery of the bigger plan. Surrender to your faith. Surrender to the magic. Don’t try to make Christmas happen. Let it happen. Surrender to the season, and enjoy and delight in how it shows you its deepest depths of beauty and hope. Surrender to the whole myriad of feelings that Christmas brings to the table like an overwhelming feast, even the tough feelings. The feelings need to be processed – all of them. This season of the year compels us to slow down and to consider and to contemplate everything that we have experienced throughout the entire past year, and even throughout the past years of our lives. In a sense, this season unabashedly forces joy, and thankfulness, and the spirit of giving, on to us, even in the coldest and darkest time of the year. It is a time of year that cheerfully, yet determinedly reminds us of what means the most to us – the people and pets whom we love, our warm homes, our sustenance, our ancestry, our ability to give to others, our (sometimes cheesy) shared traditions, our faith in something bigger, and the reminder of what all there is to celebrate in our everyday lives. (Ironically, even grumbling about my everyday life being hijacked by Christmas, made me realize just how grateful I am for my daily life, and how I live it.)

I hope that I can spend the rest of this season in the spirit of surrender of what it wants to show me this year. It feels good to let the season happen with the idea that everything is unfolding as it should. If a poor carpenter and his pregnant wife from ancient times, were willing to listen to their higher angels, why shouldn’t I do the same? There is great peace in following the simple, silent guidance of a steady star of light, and waking up to what is being shown in the light.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Fluidity

Everything is fluid. Even how you think about things is fluid. Especially how you think about things is fluid. We have started getting Christmas cards and a couple of them have come from people who were from a time when we lived in a whole different state. I have really fond memories of the people there. We were young families, literally raising our kids as a village. The neighborhood we lived in was mammoth. It was so big that it was essentially our neighborhood kids filling the entire elementary school. But yet, the neighborhood felt small, due to the wonderful circle of people we cavorted with there.

Many of our former inner circle there, like us, have left the neighborhood, for different neighborhoods (upsizing and downsizing) and like us, have even left for different states. We had to leave that neighborhood, and that state, back in 2011, for the necessity of greener pastures to support our large family quickly descending upon college age. So, leaving there, was truly bittersweet. We had poured our heart and souls into re-designing and adding on to the home where we lived there, with the faulty assumption that it would be the home that even our grandchildren would come to visit. And then, almost immediately after we finished the totally draining (both emotionally and financially) years long housing project, the Great Recession housing crash happened. We essentially had to give that home away for pennies on the dollar.

For many years, I had bitter feelings about that home. It had become a financial burden and albatross around our necks. It became “the thing” that made it hard to get “a fresh new start” in our new state. It was amazing that a creation that I had once had been so proud of, and had poured so much of my heart and creative vision into, had quickly turned into one of my biggest nightmares. It was a really humbling, shocking, disillusioning time in the lives of our family. And for years, only thoughts of anger and disbelief and frustration and regret, surrounded any ideas of our former home.

Today, out of curiosity, after receiving the cards that reminded me of our “former life”, I looked up our former home. It had been sold again in 2017 and the owners had added on even more beautiful updates. Interestingly, I noticed that all of my feelings of anger and disgust, had dissipated. I am back to feeling proud of “my former creation.” I am back to feeling deeply proud of the fingerprints, and the heartbeats, and the creative vision that we had for that home. I am mostly proud of the happy history and memories that we added to that place which we called home for a time in the life of our family. I am back to feeling only a full fondness for a lovely time in my life, and the lovely nest which we had created for our family at that time. And at the same time, I have no desire to go back. I am truly fulfilled at where I am in my life right now, and I see how all of the dots in my life have been connected and are being connected, as the picture of my life is being lived.

I have noticed this circling around of feelings and perspectives many times, about many people and situations, in my own life. I have also noticed this in the lives of others. Life has a way of softening the edges, after processing the hard stuff. How many people, having gone through vicious divorces, end up deeply hugging each other at their shared children’s major milestones? How many people have been able to find the gifts of lessons and silver linings, and forgiveness of self and others, in even the worst circumstances of their lives? Oprah Winfrey is credited with saying this: “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it’s accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”

If you are going through a tough time in your life, give yourself the knowing that someday you will likely look at this situation with a different perspective. The worst, sharpest edges causing the gashes, and the bleeding, and the pain, will dull with time. The sharpest edges will stop being able to hurt you anymore. That’s the beauty of true forgiveness. It’s an acceptance of what is, and deciding to only take the “good stuff” from the situation. Forgiveness is finally stopping the continually gashing of yourself with the sharp edges, and allowing yourself to heal the wounds, so that when you come back to viewing the situation, you will see that the now dulled edges, can’t really hurt you anymore. You will find that with time and distance, the healing has created a strong (and sometimes scarred, but often stronger for the scarring) barrier to what was once a truly visceral, seemingly unending pain. Believe this. Stop poking at your pains and let them be. Allow the miracle of the change of perspective to appear when the timing is just right. Believe in impermanence and fluidity because they really are the only constants in life, besides the underlying Love that holds us all afloat.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Ingratitude

“Not using your talents is an act of ingratitude.” – Holiday Mathis

My husband was telling me that he read an article that stated that Thanksgiving is quickly becoming America’s favorite holiday. He said that the article suggested this is because Thanksgiving is less commercialized than other holidays, and it is focused on gratitude. It always feels good to feel gratitude. It always feels good to be reminded of all of the plenty and abundance in our lives. When people list what they are grateful for the common lists seem to be: family, friends, home, health, food, pets, savings, etc. That’s why when I read the above quote this morning, it gave me pause. If someone were sitting around the Thanksgiving table and they started spouting how thankful they were for their intelligence, their creativity, their physical prowess, their beautiful singing voice, their gardening skills etc. we might think to ourselves, “How arrogant!”, but yet, we all benefit when people use their talents to the best of their abilities. Our Thanksgiving feasts are delicious because talented cooks came up with the recipes. We are entertained Thanksgiving Day by the talented singers and dancers and musicians and float creators that start with the Macy’s Day parade. We often watch amazing athletes later that day, playing football and other sports. Many of us went to go see Wicked over the weekend (my daughter and I among them) and besides the incredible actors, the talent that went into making that movie from the writers, to the special effects people, to the directors, etc. etc. is a list as long as the credits that are played at the end of each film which we see.

I often would spout to my children, “Actions speak louder than words.” Gratitude is an action. When we are grateful to be alive, our actions reflect this. When we are grateful to be able to do, and to enjoy the things that come naturally to us, we are giving ourselves (and the world) the gift of gratitude in action. When we squander our gifts and talents, that is like throwing a present away in the face of the Bestower. Don’t be humble. Be thankful. Share your gifts with the world. They are singular. No one does anything like you do it, and no one will ever do things exactly like you do them, again. Don’t cheat yourself. Don’t cheat us. The opposite of today’s quote is: “Using your talents, is an act of gratitude.” Today, be your gratitude.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Gift Ideas

I think what I have been most jealous about men, throughout my life, is that they don’t seem to worry nearly as much as we women do, about what other people think. I just finished watching a wonderful Oprah Insider video which featured an author and psychotherapist, Lori Gottlieb. She said this: “Guilt is not part of the X chromosome.” The audience of mostly women, laughed knowingly and appreciatively. Gottlieb’s point is that society has conditioned women to believe that other people’s feelings are our responsibility, and so we take on what is called “emotional load/labor” on top of all of the other caretaking duties that often end up disproportionately in our laps.

Interestingly though, because we women often believe that we are responsible for other people’s feelings, we tend to get really controlling about the narrative. We try to control what other people think about us, or about situations, instead of just accepting and allowing other people to think what they think, and to feel what they feel. In this regard, men tend to be better at “Live and let live.” Men don’t seem to get their self-worth from what other people think about them, nearly as much as we women do. Men get their self-worth from what they think about themselves, and my hunch is that they aren’t nearly as hard on themselves, as we women tend to be on ourselves.

I don’t mean to generalize. This is just a theme that has been playing out lately in my life, when talking to friends who are women, and with shows and podcasts I have listened to recently. Perhaps a beautiful holiday gift we could give to ourselves, is to stop worrying so much about what other people think, and put all of that energy back into what we think is best for ourselves. And at the same time, a beautiful holiday gift that we could give to others, is the acceptance that they are free to think what they think, and to feel what they feel, without interference from our desperate need to control the narrative.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.