+ If you are around my age (53) and you miss your grandparents, check out this 94-year-old “granfluencer”, Grandma Droniak. In her own words, she “slays.” https://www.tiktok.com/@grandma_droniak?lang=en And if you don’t like her outfit for the day, you can leave. (again, her words)
+ I can’t believe that I haven’t seen Inside Out 2 yet. I adored the first movie. My daughter and I have watched it together several times (and cried every time we watched it). Anyway, this chart is an excellent way to get a better idea of how to name the feeling or feelings which you are feeling. With the unofficial start to fall in my household, I am feeling a mix of ecstacy, melancholy and intrigue. (and perhaps even a little bit of surprise).
+ We’ve had a lot going on the past week or so, and so I told my husband that this weekend’s plan is taken directly from a Spanish proverb:
“How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.”
+ And another great chart is below that I saw on LinkedIn. I like this comment about the chart by Sam Young (It has a “Dad joke” feel to it): “In the end, it all comes down to the human sole. Everyone needs just a little bit of heeling..”
+ I read something yesterday about the fact that as exciting as it is to watch the Olympic athletes, the performers and the presenters, the Olympics would not happen if a million different “little people” both employed and volunteers (cooks, traffic planners, towel changers, medal organizers, ticket box workers, construction workers, camera crews, launderers etc.) didn’t do their jobs properly. We are all part of the ant colony, friends and every job matters. The show does not go on when all of the pieces aren’t in play. You matter. So does everyone else.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
2719. What do you love most about where you live right now?
Today, my web host did not want to cooperate with me. It’s usual reliability was thrown out the window. Trying to navigate the Login to get on to my blog, was so aggravating and wonky, I found my irritability meter going towards its threshold. And then Ed of Ed’s (our lawn guy) called with a bunch of excuses of why he hadn’t been able to come out this week to mow our lawn. (we don’t own a lawn mower because we employ Ed of Ed’s) Our lawn currently looks like the beginning spawn of a remake of the Amazon jungle. As my ire was simmering underneath my skin, I was reminded of just how typically reliable both my web host, and Ed of Ed’s, are in my life, and I typically have no feelings other than peace and ease and comfort, about their dependability and stability. It’s only on the rare occasion that things aren’t going as planned that my Inner Hothead pops in for a visit, full of indignant bluster. Rumi’s poem (below) is the perfect choice for poetry day on the blog:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:
1039. What brand or product do you buy because you feel it’s trustworthy?
Kidding. Kidding. I am about 85% done. But that 15% that’s left is the toughest, and it’s all gifts that I need for men. I think that men are the hardest people to buy presents for, don’t you? Probably the grocery store is my best bet.
At my birthday bequest, my husband, daughter and I hunkered down on the couch (while a tropical storm whirled around outside) and watched Pixar’s Elemental. And of course I found a “keeper quote” in the movie. Here it is:
Wade Ripple: “Sometimes, when I lose my temper, I think it’s just me trying to tell me something I’m not ready to hear.“
The kids’ movies really know how to pack a punch and say it like it is, don’t they? A wise person once told me that during bouts of grief, anger sits right on top of depression. Anger is really a form of sadness with more energy. The next time that you get really angry, explore it for some sadness and for some truths which you may not be wanting to face. Our emotions are always our guideposts to ourselves and our thoughts and beliefs.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
” . . . serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment. If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility – other people, external events, stress – you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause those problems, then you will be stable and steady wherever you happen to be.” – (idea attributed to the philosopher Epictetus, from the book, The Daily Stoic)
The dictionary defines a stoic as this: “a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.” Pictures of the StarTrek character Spock pop up when you look up the word “stoic.”
No one would ever accuse me of being a stoic. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. That’s what attracted me to learn more about the philosophy of stoicism. Opposites attract.
The Daily Stoic is a book of 366 short daily meditations that so far seems to me, to be repeating and ingraining the idea of “the circle of control”. See below (credit: Clair Newton):
We’ve all seen the circle of control. I’ve shared it before on the blog. Basically the circle of control shows that only what is in the center of the circle, is what you have full control over in this present moment. In the blue ring, you may have some influence, but you do have full control and in the outside circle, you have virtually almost no control, even though these things are a part of your everyday life. A true stoic stays in the center of the circle of control, and accepts all that is outside of the center, unemotionally and detachedly.
I’m early into my studies of stoicism, but what I am learning so far, is that stoics aren’t necessarily emotionless, it’s just that their tranquility does not depend on what is happening outside of them. They make it a habit to be tranquil, for tranquility’s sake, and they find this inner peacefulness through a daily focus on a “code of honor” (credit Donald J. Robertson):
The Stoic Virtues and Code of Honor
Love the truth and seek wisdom.
Act with justice, fairness, and kindness toward others.
Master your fears and be courageous.
Master your desires and live with self-discipline.
Interestingly, while I have a hard time relating to Spock, Andy Dufresne from the classic film, The Shawshank Redemption is also listed as a stoic. Even though Andy was wrongfully charged for murder and sentenced to a lifetime of prison, he heroically makes the most of his situation and in the end of the film, we witness his redemption. Andy wasn’t emotionless, but Andy didn’t let his emotions rule him. The level of emotional self-control which he had, meant that others couldn’t take him down, by using the weapon of his own emotions against him.
As a writer and a creative, I’m in love with emotion. I’m in love with passion and heart and energetic, emotional movement of the inner soul. However, I am learning that stoicism may be confused with the idea of lack of emotion, where instead, stoicism is the harnessing of emotion to make it work for you. Stoicism understands emotion, and therefore keeps it in its rightful perspective. The three most celebrated founders of Stoicism are Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca. Here are some thoughts attributed to these philosophers:
Marcus Aurelius:
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
“Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.”
Epictetus:
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.”
“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”
Seneca:
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.”
Are you finding that you may be more stoic than you ever imagined yourself to be? I am, too.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Welcome to Soul Sunday on the blog. Sundays are devoted to poetry here. I have chosen to share a poem written by a poet named R. DeArcos, which I think captures the feeling of how small and alone you feel when you are facing an enormous natural tempest. It is my personal spiritual beliefs that we are all one with all of creation, but when you are facing down a storm, you definitely feel small and alone. The storm is just being a storm. It’s nothing personal, but it sure feels that way.
This will be my last post regarding Hurricane Ian for a while. I promise. Most of our Floridian friends and family have spent this weekend processing our feelings about what we have just gone through. The build up of fear, uncertainty, feelings of being overwhelmed, guilt, sometimes perhaps even shame, survivor’s guilt, worries, anger, grief, etc. is all piled into your being and it takes a while, for these sensations to be fully released and washed away. (and for those people dealing with the major aftermath of Ian, those feelings will be stirring within them for quite some time) Honestly, the release of emotion is exhausting, but cleansing, until only relief and gratitude remains.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“In Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say “I am sad”, you say “sadness is on me.” “Tá brón orm” I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just, sadness is on me ..” ~ Pádraig Ó Tuama
What a healthy way to look at emotion. The statements, “I am angry,” or “I am sad,” or “I am lonely,” take on too much ownership and identity. We are humans. We experience a myriad of different emotions every single day. One emotion may be more dominant than another for a while, kind of like a smothering blanket, thus, “Sadness is on me.” When you say it like this, you have the power to throw the sadness off of you, when the time is right. You can uncover yourself from the emotion that is lying heavy on you. Sadness is an emotion. You are not sadness. You are a beautiful spark of life, and of being, and of creativity who is capable of experiencing all sorts of emotions, and thoughts, and occurrences. It is good to feel your feelings, but you never want to become your feelings. When you do let your emotions take over the whole of you, it becomes too overwhelming, and it also diminishes your overall being, at the same time.
Janey Mack! Get off the stage! This is way too serious a post for a Monday-Funday, correct?! Here is another good one from the Irish, more in line with our usual Monday fun:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I love this meme. Of course, it makes it seem so simple and easy, though. Just intellectualize your angry feelings and then calmly, explain and express them. You know, just stay rational. Ha! Anger has a ton of energy. There is a reason why anger is often symbolized by a raging fire. Anger often torches everything that comes in its path and makes no apologies while it is doing it.
What the meme is really expressing is to explain your anger as it comes, when it is still a little campfire, made out of just a little pile of kindling (frustrations). Of course, the hardest step is admitting to yourself that you are angry. We have turned anger into a mean, bad, crazy, hurtful, ugly emotion, but that’s because we bottle it up too much. Any emotion that is bottled up comes out ferociously. Rarely, does a bottled emotion just dissipate and evaporate. Instead, it eventually uncorks and overflows. Even bottled up happiness can look a little crazy and unhinged when it is finally expressed.
A great way to truly get to understand your own emotions, is to explain and describe them. This does not mean to explain and describe what situation that you think created your emotion, it means to describe and explain the actual emotion which you are feeling.
This morning I feel serene. Serene feels peaceful. My body feels rested. I don’t feel rushed. I feel “in the moment.” I am slowly and easily breathing. Having described what the feeling of serenity feels like, I can then explore what got me to this moment: a good night’s sleep, my husband bringing me coffee, an unscheduled morning.
This thoughtful exercise can work for any emotion, even anger. We notice physical pain in our bodies. In this same way, we can notice what emotion feels like in our bodies. By doing this, we get really familiar with ourselves, and our reactions. We can better control our emotions, when we understand them. We can better respond to situations that we understand, versus just randomly reacting with bottled up emotions that finally just explode outward from the pressures surrounding us.
Emotions aren’t bad, not even anger. They are just signals for us to explore our needs. If we treat our feelings with interest and dignity, they help to guide us to what is best for us, and for our relationships. We just have to remember to use our emotions as telling, introspective tools, versus maniacal, out-of-control weapons.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’m having a distracting morning. Usually I am better at protecting my early morning hours for just me and for my writing, but today I let myself get distracted – by wanting to sleep, by taking a phone call, by getting caught up on “click bait” on the internet, by getting caught up in “click bait”, in my mind, and in my imagination, and in the riling of my emotions. It happens. I like the phrase “It happens,” as long as I don’t use it too often as an excuse. “It happens” is a reminder that none of us are perfect. Life is often messy and so are we. Here are two quotes/passages I came across in my readings, which I like a lot. I think that you will, too.
“Thoughts are like taxis. You get in, they take you for a ride and you are left with the bill to pay. Instead, why not let them drive by?” – Gelong Thubten
“Singing – It calms us-the vibration in the body, the resonance rumbling through-there’s a reason lullabies put babies to sleep. To sing is to pray, to meditate, to speak the unspeakable, to let go of what has been kept silent. To sing in harmony is to share those things, to wrap one voice around another and fall in love in some way, to become alchemists of notes and create mixtures of soundwaves that magically put feelings in order, even if it has to rile them first.” – Allison Moorer
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, soul mates. I hope that today finds you feeling centered and whole. I have been enjoying all sorts of fun experiences, with my entire family this weekend. Nothing makes me feel more centered than being with my family. Sundays, as my regular readers know, are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Why do so many people groan when someone utters the word “poetry”? I think that is an interesting thing to ponder. There is no other form of writing that is more personal, more emotional, nor more poignant than poetry. And yet so many people turn away from it, under the guise of calling it “boring”. Is that really the case? Or is the “dissing” of poetry more of an overall avoidance of facing, and then really feeling, our deepest, most soulful feelings?
For most of this year I have used this tagline on my blog: Are passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain, and pass on love. How do you heal your pain? You face it. You acknowledge it. You let yourself feel it. Your pain will dissipate. Your pain just wants to be acknowledged. Your pain just wants to be understood and to be explored and most importantly, to be felt, so that it can be healed. Again, once pain is faced with compassion and empathy, once pain is physically and emotionally felt, it is spent. Once it is felt, your pain will dissipate. Your pain has just been serving as a dark cloud, over the light of your beautiful, light-filled core of love. Your pain has just served as clouds over the sunshine of your timeless soul. Shine the light on your pain. Ironically, we tend to hold on to our pain, by ignoring it, and by trying to pretend that it isn’t there. And that exhausting act of avoidance just makes our pain grow, like a dark, fierce, quickly growing storm cloud, in a desperate plea to be seen, and to be felt. Pain that is ignored and pain that is unacknowledged, cannot be healed, and cannot be released. Love is greater than pain. Love is. Love your pain away. Clear the clouds.
This is my poem for the day:
My Children In the Other Room
I revel in the sound of your voices,
All together humming, occasionally interrupted by laughter,
A calming cadence of familiar tones.
I don’t listen for the words,
I listen to the harmony of your hearts,
As you share casual conversation.
There is no sound that is more beautiful to me,
Than the blending of your voices,
Sounding the tones of our common love.
Together, your voices, sing the rhythm of my heart.
I’m “Moody Trudy” today, readers. I can’t really explain why. I had a great weekend with my family. I love the extra hour of sleep the fall Daylight Savings Times gifts to us. Sometimes you just wake up with the weight of the world on your shoulders and you need some time to let the Bigger Hands lift the weight off. My poor husband look bewildered and worried as usually “happy-go-lucky me” couldn’t read the news to him, like I do every morning, without choking up at the grim, dark stories that seem to be piling up these days, with a crazy momentum that needs to be slowed.
It’s okay to feel sad sometimes. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and scared. It’s important to let yourself feel your feelings. Feelings won’t kill you. The goal is to feel your feelings and let them pass through you, because they always do. I’m feeling lifted already as I write this.
“Listen to your feelings, but don’t dance to them.” -unknown
It is important to use your feelings as a navigation system, but don’t become them. Don’t let your feelings swallow up your identity. Often it is your thoughts that are big cause of your feelings. So when you are feeling a “negative” feeling, it is good to examine the thoughts that are creating that feeling. Often the thoughts that create negative feelings aren’t even really true or they are greatly exaggerated. Sometimes we give too much credence to the thoughts of others and claim these thoughts as our own, without even realizing it.
“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not surrounded by assholes.” – Notorious d.e.b.
When the negative thoughts and feelings arise, it’s best not to resist them. It’s best not to bury them, because then they often end up showing up in our physical bodies as illness or pain. If we let our emotions flow like water, we will quickly return to our more tranquil way of being.
“We cannot write in water . . . we cannot carve in water. Water’s nature is to flow and that is how we should treat life . . . emotion, negative or positive. Do not deny it, but always let it flow through and then away.” – Dr. Tae Yun Kim
At the very least, when I am feeling lowly, I can usually tap into my compassion for others in a deep way. When you are typically a cheery, upbeat person, people sometimes don’t realize that you feel sad at times, too. We are all great at creating outsides that make others believe that it wouldn’t be possible for us to ever feel despondent. When you have a nice house, a good marriage, healthy kids, etc. you even sometimes judge yourself for having sad thoughts. But the spectrum of emotion belongs to us all. No one is immune to the rainbow hues of feelings, thoughts and sensitivities that ebb and flow through all of us on a daily basis.
“People can be so quiet about their pain, that you forget that they are hurting. That is why it is so important to always be kind.” – Nikita Gill
