Tag: bob ross

Let It Work

credit: @woofknight, Twitter

Yesterday morning I woke up grumpy. Nothing inspired me, nothing interested me and nothing really held my attention. Some of my friends said that the blog post that I wrote yesterday (about finding joy, even in the banal things of life), inspired them, and that made me feel like a fraud. I had to go back and read my own blog post to remind myself that I mostly write this blog as messages and reminders to myself, about how I want to live my life. I had to remind myself to find the joy in the every moment.

Today I woke up early, chirpy and chipper and engaged. This morning, I am finding everything that I read to be enlightening, interesting, hilarious and inspiring. I have at least a hundred memes/quotes/stories that I could share on the blog, which have somehow touched me and moved me. Nothing in my life has changed drastically in the last 24 hours. The circumstances of my life (the good, the bad and the ugly) have remained stable from yesterday morning until this morning. Perhaps I am bipolar, but it is more likely that I am just human. It is interesting to me, just how much our moods can affect our own engagement in our own lives. Which brings me to the most resonating (to me) quote, of the many that I enthusiastically and voraciously read this morning:

“You don’t have to make it work. You have to let it work.” – Alan Cohen

This is a lesson in life, that despite having a myriad of examples from my own life and from the examples in many others’ lives, that I think that I will have to keep learning for the rest of my life, and maybe even beyond. Sometimes you just have to let bad moods be, knowing that they will change to good, without rhyme or reason as to why. This is so against our human nature. We Americans, in particular, have had it drilled into us to “Make it work.” “Make it happen.” “Just do it.” We’re not good at “letting it be,” or as Alan Cohen states it, “Let it work.” We’re not good at letting things evolve in their own way, in their own time, with the solid faith, that with or without our fretting and sweating, things always have a way of working themselves out, often in the most meaningful, unexpected perfectness of ways. And it’s usually in our moments of surrender, when we finally (often out of utter exhaustion and dejection) get out of our own way, that we get to be the awestruck witnesses to the splendor of things working themselves out beautifully.

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

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.