Tag: inspiration

Soul Sunday

Good morning! Welcome to poetry day on the blog. On Sundays, I often implore you to write yourself a poem. This poet says it best:

I follow a man named Joseph Fasano on Twitter. He’s an English teacher in NYC, but he is also a published prose writer, poet and a musician. Joseph Fasano is also an incredible curator of other people’s poetry. I highly recommend for you to follow Joseph Fasano on Twitter. You will learn so much. Recently he assigned his students this: “Your assignment tonight is to read a writer someone told you not to“. Readers, let’s follow that assignment. Go to a banned books list and amaze yourself by just how many of the books on that list you have already read, and loved (and perhaps, were even assigned to read in school). Let’s not let sterilized AI and limited, fearful ideology take over the beauty, creativity, honesty and humanity, that comes from the written word of so many different perspectives and experiences, told in the voices of true, vulnerable humans, seeking some form of wisdom and understanding. Empathy is uniquely human when we decide to utilize it.

Below is one of Joseph’s most excellent poems. (anyone who has ever had to leave a terrible situation, can relate to this one):

And he posted this poem the other day. This poem so reminds me of my grandparents’ generation. They just had a way with living life in acceptance that I think we may have somewhat lost throughout the years:

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

Thoughts for Thursday

+ I’ve been complaining a lot in real life, and also even here on the blog, about how “stuck” certain situations seem to be in my life. I’ve often heard organization gurus talk about how clearing out your living space helps to bring movement to “stuck” energy, and I know this, in my heart, to be true. Yesterday, I got proof. I’ve spent most of this week, cleaning out some closets and organizing my things, and that in itself has felt amazing. (Why do we put this chore off when we know just how good that it feels when completed??) Anyway, two small situations in my life that had felt a little angsty and “hopeless” to me, miraculously turned around yesterday. If you feel “stuck”, put that irritation and angst away for a little while, and instead go all in with cleaning out a couple of your drawers, or a shelf, or a closet. As within, so without.

+ Dr. Nicole LePera recently wrote this Tweet on Twitter:

LIFE ACCOMPLISHMENTS THAT GO UNNOTICED: 1. Being happy in your marriage 2. Taking a pay cut to do a job you love 3. Making a major life shift at 50 or 60 4. Enjoying your own company 5. Being able to say “no” comfortably 6. Using your gifts to help others 7. Divorce from a dysfunctional situation.

Isn’t this the truth? I know many people who are financially/professionally successful. But I know a lot less people who have accomplished any or all of the things listed above. These things are rare accomplishments because they require a lot of self-awareness, prioritizing, sacrifice, authenticity and bravery. And interestingly, these accomplishments listed above, are what often brings the most intrinsic satisfaction to one’s life. Bravo, to my courageous, dedicated friends and readers, who can count yourself as accomplishing at least one of those items on Dr. LePera’s list! Your accomplishments do not go unnoticed. They are admired, respected and appreciated.

+ I read an interesting article recently that talked about when we are going through a big change in our lives (such as empty nest, relationship changes, job changes, etc), we have a tendency to want to torch everything to the ground, and to start fresh, but this is a major mistake for most. Our everyday routines give us structure and predictability, in a world that often appears chaotic. Our daily routines help us to stay disciplined, feel purposeful, and they stop us from ruminating and overthinking. When going through major changes in our lives, it is best to stick with the routine, but also to “watch” ourselves in it. What needs tweaking? What could be added? What could be let go? You’ll learn more about yourself, by observing yourself right where you are, than chucking it all, to go meditating on a mountain in a different, exotic country. And when you do decide to go on your mountaintop meditation journey, you’ll already know exactly who you are, and you’ll have brought your healthiest, wisest self with you, in order to just enjoy the major change and the sensations that you’re experiencing.

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

Four Laws

Anne Lamott likes to repeat this often in her writings, and in her social media:

The Four Immutable Laws of Spirit

by Harrison Owen

1) Whoever shows up are exactly the right people to show up.

2) When it begins is exactly the right time.

3) Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.

4) When it’s over, it’s over.

Harrison Owen was an Australian writer, explorer and photographer who wrote these principles after observing the interactions of many different people and types of groups, all over the world. He developed a process for running large group meetings, based on these four observed principles. He called this process “Open Space Technology.” Harrison Owen drew up these principles with the idea of getting the most out of large meetings of people, in the way of creativity, and open-mindedness and the flow of concepts and perspectives and ideas.

Nowadays, The Four Immutable Laws of Spirit are often used as a spiritual reminder to individuals and to groups, to help them come into a peaceful acceptance of what is, and also, to let go of what is not in our own control.

If you are having a circumstance or a happening in your life that you are struggling with accepting and/or you are trying to control the outcome to no avail, does it bring you comfort to apply “The Four Immutable Laws of Spirit”? We often spend way too much time in the “would of/could of/should of”, “hindsight is 20/20”, things didn’t turn out exactly how I had hoped and planned, thoughts and feelings of regret, about events that have already passed in our lives. If we can consider that the “The Four Immutable Laws of Spirit” may possibly be the undeniable truth, then we can shift our awareness to the lessons, the awakenings, the positive gifts and elements that came from the situation, and our own personal growth that occurred from the circumstance, which will help us in our lives’ experiences, going forward.

When something is in the past, it is what it is. It happened the way that it did, with the people who were part of it, during the circumstances that are already over. And when an event is over, what is best left, is not to ruminate on wishing that things had gone differently, but to accept the event for what it was, and to explore the truths, and the emotions, and what is salvageable and helpful to bring forth into the now experience of your present life. If you can get yourself to believe that the circumstance happened exactly as it did, in order to bring to you (and to the others who were involved) these very life lessons and skills and awakenings, you can find peace about the situation, instead of staying mired in frustration about your regrets, and your own lack of control. If you can believe that there is a bigger process in play, with more meaning and intricacy and overall connection involved in it all, than you could possibly understand with your one small, human mind, than you can find peaceful presence in every moment of your life. Use what works.

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

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Fun is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “Light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, or amusement; boisterous joviality or merrymaking; entertainment” (Wikipedia)

What do you do for fun? Do you do what society says is fun, or do you really know what you, yourself, find to be fun? Are you caught up in a rut of doing the same old things that you used to do for fun (perhaps from childhood on), that if you are honest with yourself, you don’t find to be fun anymore? Maybe if you are excruciatingly honest with yourself, you might find that what you do for “fun”, has never really been fun for you, but something you have done to please others, or something that you think that you should find to be fun, because others seem to find it fun. Have you turned something that used to be fun for you into a goal-oriented chore? (For example, perhaps you used to love to run, or workout, or play golf, for fun’s sake, but now it has evolved into a strict, time-consuming regimens, full of self-judgment? Or perhaps that club that you joined, used to be fun, until you took on a leadership role that now just makes it another added stress in your life.) Remember that the dictionary describes fun as “light-hearted pleasure and amusement.”

Make an off-the-cuff list of things you do for fun. Then really study that list and ask yourself the questions from above. Narrow down your list only to the things that actually bring to you “light-hearted pleasure, enjoyment, and amusement.” If your list is sparse, think about things that you could add to this list, to bring more light-hearted pleasure and enjoyment into your life. If parties aren’t on the list that’s okay. Perhaps sitting in a quiet corner with some needlework is more fun for you. Maybe you used to find shopping to be fun, but now you crave a simpler life with less stuff. All of the sudden, organizing and purging might be more fun for you at this stage in your life. We change all of the time in all different facets of our life. It’s okay to no longer find joy in tennis, book club, yoga, art collecting, going to concerts, scrapbooking etc., even if at one time this thing was a true passion for you. Passions burn out (passion comes from fire, and fire always burns out when its fuel goes damp or empty). Don’t feel guilty if you have spent a lot of time and money on skiing or boating or stamp collecting. You can sell your equipment, or you can charitably give it to others who are just discovering their own varied interests. Or you can just lessen your time commitment to certain pleasures that aren’t as fun as they used to be for you. Maybe instead of skiing every weekend, you choose to take a ski trip once or twice a year. This opens up some space on your calendar to try something new. Just because you are good at something, or highly skilled at something, doesn’t mean that this particular thing has to be your source of fun and pleasure. A lot of people work at what they are talented at doing, in order to afford to do what they truly love to do, and on what they really find to be fun and intriguing.

One of my friends swears by the app, Meetup. Meetup is an app/website to help you to find groups and clubs with similar interests as you have, in your local area. She said that when she first joined Meetup, it was like dating, she had to be open to exploring. My friend soon figured out what groups were right for her, and which ones were non-starters. My friend laughingly tells the story of walking towards a group of people who all looked to be at least her parents’ age and older, and so she turned right back around and went home. She knew right off that this particular group wasn’t for her. However, it was through Meetup, that my friend ended up trying kayaking, which is now one of the greatest sources of fun and activity and friendships, in her life.

People tend to discount fun. Fun isn’t “important” enough. We don’t have time for fun. And then we question why we have so much anxiety and depression and burnout in our society. If you ever watch animals, they love to have fun. Our three dogs (none of them are puppies) turn our home entrance into wrestle mania at least once a day. Two of our dogs would play fetch to their deaths, if we didn’t stop throwing the ball. Wild animals frolic with each other all day long, even when grown. Fun is not just for puppies and children.

Today, make your honest list of what you find to be fun. Make a list of things that you would be interested in trying for fun. (if you have a hard time with this one, think about things that you loved to do as a child and see if you can incorporate some of “that” back into your life) Take a time slot in your life where you know that you are in a rut of just doing the habitual, same-old/same-old, and insert something new from the “things to try for fun” list. The worst that will happen is that you will find your curiosity satisfied about something that you had never tried before. It may be “not your thing” but that will just leave an empty slot on your list for another new thing to try.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. I’ve experienced a lovely weekend. I hope that you have, too. Today, I decided to stop slacking, and I finally wrote my own poem for today. (Write a poem today. If I can do it, you can do it. Trust me. I consider poems to be messages in a bottle sent from the deepest recesses of your heart, up to your head to be translated, with understanding and resonation.) Baudelaire once wrote, “Always be a poet, even in prose.” Here is my poem for today:

Light breezes, finding the perfect seashell,

puppies, babies, foreign lands, spicy food,

the joys and angsts of raising children,

flowers, books, singing robustly when driving my car,

laughing, playing, loving with intimate vigor,

sunny, clear days, and calm, fire-lit starry nights,

As I ponder of what trinket of beauty to write a poem about,

I ask myself,

If I were to be thrown into a small, dark, dank prison with iron chains,

Or I found myself tied to a lonely hospital bed for the rest of my days,

would have I let myself experience enough life and unbridled emotion,

from my vital, gifted, assumed days of freedom and health,

to fill those lonely, lost days with poems of lush and vivid memories?

Am I living the poetry in my heart that is begging to flourish right now?

There is nothing sadder than a heart without poems.

Living life is what beats a heart.

Poetry flows from the beat.

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

Lightning Strikes

Last night we went to an event with our youngest son and his friends which was held in the arena where our local hockey team plays. Our local hockey team is our city’s pride and joy. We’ve won three Stanley Cups, two of them in back-to-back years. It always gives me a giggle, particularly now, in the August heat of a Florida summer, to think about how dominant we are at a winter sport that was invented in Canada, whose winters are as brutal as our summers. One feature of our event tickets was to be able to tour the locker room, which was surprisingly small, humble, and modest when you think of it as an area that these great champions spend a fair amount of their time. This actually made me smile. It made me think of the unpretentious Ted Lasso. When we turned the corner to a small sitting area with a couple of well worn couches, there were these words printed on the walls (as always, the words were my favorite feature of the night, besides laughing with my family and friends):

“The Standard is set by our action and mindset – Our action is swift and without hesitation, our mindset is one of quiet calm in the heat of battle, we will win as a result of our values. We are Fearless, Accountable, have Integrity, are Tenacious and Humble. We have Faith in The Standard.

Fearless – I am not afraid to fail.

Accountability – There are no excuses.

Integrity – I honor my word with my actions.

Tenacity – I will do whatever it takes.

Humility – Team above self, always.”

With a Standard like this, is it a wonder that they have become The Standard to beat???

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

This Is A Good One

I remember many years ago my uncle relaying a story of sitting next to “The Boss” (Bruce Springsteen) on an airplane heading to New Jersey, and my uncle said that Bruce was an incredibly nice, gracious, down-to-earth man. Since the theme of the blog this week seems to be trending towards “good, kind-hearted people”, I thought that I would share this video. Good people are everywhere. Make it a point to look for them. They usually don’t make a show of it, but they are everywhere. If you make a point of looking out for something, you will be surprised about how often you find it. Sometimes you will feel inundated. Try it. Pick anything – a red rose, a butterfly, a dolphin, an orange car, etc. and marvel at how many times in a small amount of time you see this particular thing or an image or representation of this item, as you are going about doing your daily life. ( “The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon is an example of such biased attention. What is it called when you learn something and then see it everywhere? This phenomenon is called the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or the frequency illusion.” – Scribbr) Why not add kind, wonderful, thoughtful people to your list of things that you want to see on a daily basis? Wouldn’t that be a great uplift to your every day?

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

Good Guys

Based on the views, yesterday’s post about being with people who are “good for your soul” must have struck a chord. I feel like the Universe is sending me this message loud and clear this week, based on what I experienced yesterday.

Yesterday, you subscribers may have noticed that you got your email with my blog post a lot earlier than usual. This is because I had jury duty. This is only the second time in my life that I have ever been called for jury duty. The first time that I was called for jury duty was in 2016, during a time period that our youngest son’s epileptic seizures were not in control, and he was still a teenager at home. The clerk of courts kindly accepted my excuse, and I didn’t even have to drive down to the courthouse at that time.

Honestly, there was a time in my life that I would have been excited for the “new adventure” of possibly being on a jury, but yesterday, I was not excited, nor engaged about the possibility. I, of course, believe in our legal system and I understand and I support the fact that jury duty is a civic responsibility and a duty, but like all of us, I was not particularly excited about having my life, and my daily schedule interrupted. Also, I have gotten to be even more emotional, and more nuanced (sometimes muddled) in my thinking about things, as I have aged, and sadly, though not as jaded as many people seem to be, I definitely have become more cynical about “the state of things” than I ever have been in my life. In short, I didn’t have confidence that I would make the best of jurors.

Luckily, the jury supervisor told us right from the beginning that for the 14 trials that we had been called for, 11 of them had already been settled. Looking at the room of about 150 people, with seemingly every category of human beings represented: age, color, fashion style, etc., I figured that my odds were really good to be dismissed. And I was right. An hour later, the jury supervisor dismissed all of us, saying that the final three cases had been settled and we were free to go home (with the warning to please not tell everyone that this is the “norm”. In fact, she said, this was highly unusual. We were lucky.) I was home by 10:30 in the morning.

By late afternoon, I was exhausted. I had not slept well the night before, and I had walked around in the high heat, a little too much. One of my friends and my youngest son both recommended for me to watch the show, Jury Duty (Amazon prime), so at dinner, I implored my husband to sit on the couch and “veg” with me. Last night, we binge-watched all eight episodes of Jury Duty in the matter of around three hours, and now I believe that I would make for a better juror. My belief and faith in humanity has been restored a bit.

Jury Duty is a show where a young man named Ronald Gladden believes that he is taking part of being in a documentary, about being a member of a jury, in a civil case. The truth of the matter is Ronald is a real-life “Truman” (like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show). Everyone else in the whole show – judge, other jury members, lawyers, bailiff, etc. are all actors. The show is meant to be a comedy (it was created by the makers of “The Office”, and things get really zany, and even sometimes a little bit gross and over-the-top), but what stays constant is Ronald Gladden’s wonderful, steady character and kindness. Being made jury foreman, Ronald stays even, and calm under pressure. He works to be inclusive of all members of the jury, including “the weird ones”, and the older ones, and the ones whose accents make them hard to understand. He is uplifting to those who need it, and discrete about those who have made mistakes. Ronald is helpful and understanding and patient, consistently, with every single one of the jurors. He is thoughtful and inquisitive when taking notes about the case. Ronald steps up to being a leader, as the foreman, when he helps the jurors come to a consensus that they all felt comfortable with, without shaming or deriding anyone into their decisions. In short, he takes his job seriously and he does it well. It’s no wonder that #RonaldForPresident is trending viral on social media. It seems that we are all a little thirsty to witness more of the better side of humanity these days. Ronald Gladden is one of “the good guys” and we love him for it.

There were 2500 people who answered an ad on Craigslist to be in this documentary. The creators of the show were very selective. The executive producer, Nicholas Hatton said they were looking for someone specific: “It was vital to find someone we sensed the audience could root for and would also provide the heart and moral compass of the show.” They got it “spot on” with Ronald. And he is not an actor. He was not acting. Ronald was just being himself – a wonderful human being.

Last night, after crawling into bed after binging the entire show, I told my husband that now, I kind of wished that I had been picked for jury duty after all. It made me question if I would have behaved as decently and patiently and kindly, as Ronald did, throughout the three weeks of daily dealings with an unusual, eclectic, sometimes annoying group of characters. I feel inspired by a young man who showed me that this is indeed possible, and it is beautiful.

“Each human being shall have all of these in him, and they will constitute his nature. In some, there will be high and fine characteristics which will submerge the evil ones, and those will be called good men; in others the evil characteristics will have dominion, and those will be called bad men.” – Mark Twain

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

Good Food for the Soul

Our daughter experienced the last day of her summer job, this past Sunday. She worked at a popular, local ice cream shop near to one of our more beloved beaches. At dinner last night, my daughter told my husband and I that what she loved most about this particular job, is that it “brought her back to herself” again. Needless to say, this perked my ears.

“I lost myself a little bit, at the end of spring semester,” she said honestly and earnestly. “And these kind, fun, full of camaraderie people whom I worked with, along with the regular, supportive customers, and the excited, happy-go-lucky vacationing out-of-towners, brought me back to my natural self.”

Our daughter is a rising sophomore at a large, competitive university. None of her closest friends from high school ended up attending this same university with her, so she had to navigate a lot on her own, this past freshman year, in an environment that sometimes felt like swimming with the sharks, to her. I told my daughter how proud I was of her, for her considerate self-awareness. I reminded her what a good lesson she has learned, and I hope that she will be able to remember it, and to apply it, for the rest of her life.

“It is healthy and important to limit interactions with people who make you feel ‘less than’, or who you are afraid to be your true self with – these are not your people,” I said to her. “How you feel around a person speaks volumes. You must be true to yourself. You will never be happy if you feel that you can’t be the authentic version of the one-and-only-you. We all get cheated when people aren’t able to be fullest and deepest and truest expression of their own unique selves. People who accept you, and love you for your own distinctive qualities are the best kind of people there are in this world. Remember to be that kind of person for other people, too.”

The ice cream shop coworkers were a hodgepodge of older, full-time managers and workers, college students from all different universities and colleges, working for the summer, and a few high school students sprinkled in for good measure. Based on the funny stories, the social events they had with each other outside of work, and the support and cooperation and consideration shown to each other during busy, bustling work nights (all things which our daughter had relayed to us throughout the summer), it became extremely evident, that this eclectic group of people made for an amazing, good-for-the-soul, mix of coworkers and friends.

Sometimes in life, when all of the individual ingredients are so wholesome and incredible on their own merit, and they come together in one spot, you end up with something like an absolutely unbeatable, unforgettable delicious hot fudge sundae. For me, the fact that my daughter learned to appreciate the goodness and the sweetness of people who make you comfortable to be fully yourself, the people who help you to bring “the you” out of you, and who celebrate you and appreciate you, is the biggest, juiciest, most delightful cherry on top, of this memorable experience, in her young adult life.

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

Monday Funday

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.

There are two quotes that stood out for me, from my weekend reading. They are by the same author, Ehime Ora:

“Today will be an easy day if you let it be. Try not to spiral in your thoughts. Not everything that you think is true.”

“You deserve peace in your life, not just low stress. There’s a difference.”

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