Tag: inspiration

Inhale/Exhale

“. . .Just start to feel the natural rhythm of the breath. Notice the shift between the inhale and the exhale. And start to notice that point where the inhale pauses and makes way for the exhale – and the exhale fully releases and makes way for the inhale. Notice that moment in between one and the other. This change is happening all day long. And it is a necessary one. As we shift back and forth from inhale to exhale, we’re given what we need and we get to release what we don’t. . . . you might even use these words as a little affirmation. On the inhale, just hearing in your mind: “I’m receiving what I need.” And on the exhale: “I’m releasing what I don’t.” ” – Chani Nicholas, meditation on Change

This is a wonderful meditation that you can go to any time that you take a pause, and you focus on your breath. When we get anxious and upset we tend to breathe shallowly and we almost kind of hold our breath. We are afraid to let go, but if we think of letting go as releasing everything that we don’t need, it’s such a freeing, peaceful thought. Everything that we need is provided for us when we just breathe. We take what we need from our inhales, and then we exhale and release what don’t need. This constant process of change which happens in our lives is just moving towards what we need, and releasing what we don’t need, in order to live a happy, peaceful, fulfilling life.

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

Monday – Funday

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

With respect to keeping the privacy of loved ones, this is a list of some lessons I learned, or at least was reminded of this past weekend:

+ You don’t have to go it alone. People are mostly kind and merciful and want to help you. Let them in. Let love in.

+ Don’t be quick to judge the crazy lady, in the pikachu hat, who repeats herself constantly in your local eatery. She may just be a beautiful, creative person who has early dementia and is worried about her spouse, who is the love of her life. She has people who care about her and animals whom she deeply loves. And she’s not homeless. She’s probably wealthier than you. She actually has three homes, and is a multimillionaire.

+ Your body is like Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. It will do everything that it can to keep giving and giving and giving to you, no matter how you treat it, but eventually it will have nothing left to give. Treat your body with respect and care. Don’t treat it with disregard. It is the vehicle that allows you to live life. Without it, nothing else really matters. You will not be able to live a full, free life without a healthy body. All of your accolades, all of your accomplishments, all of your dreams, all of your wealth and possessions mean nothing without a healthy body. Health is your ultimate wealth.

+ People in the medical fields are an astonishing mix of deep compassion and scientifical stoicism. They are a special breed and they are doing their best every single day. And their “best” is typically a lot better than the rest of our “best.” Treat them with gratitude and appreciation. It goes a long way.

+ You never regret being there for people. But you must also show up for yourself. It’s an airline mask cliche (put your mask on first) but it is so true, you cannot take care of others, unless you take care of yourself first. Caretaking is strenuous, stressful, emotional and physical work and it will break you down, if you aren’t careful. Make sure that when you consider how to take care of others, you put yourself into that equation.

+ Never, ever give up hope. Losing is going to hurt whether you hoped or not. So keep hoping. When there is life, there is hope.

Do Your Favorites Now

Friends, I don’t have it in me right now to do one of my traditionally frivolous Friday posts. I know that “the show must go on,” but I’m not a good faker. I never have been. We are on the brink of unexpectedly losing another extended family member and it’s a lot to bear right now.

The truth is, I love to play around with pretty things and fun products and to read excellent books and to get engaged in interesting movies, because I love life. Even in the tough times, I love the experience of being alive. I love the sensations of seeing beautiful things, hearing lovely music, smelling amazing scents, feeling all different sensations on my skin and tasting wonderful food. I make no apologies for being happy, and actively and fully loving my life and looking forward to each of my days and experiences. It’s what we’re supposed to do. I love Aliveness and it hurts to see people lose their gift of Aliveness, no matter what the state of their physical health. As we all know, it’s not really the things in life that matter. It’s the people whom we love, and the very act of being in love with life itself.

Today, this Friday, please do at least one of your favorite activities with at least one of your favorite people. Feel what it is like to be fully immersed in the feeling of love, and of joy and of awe, and of passion, for the experiences that you are having, living a life here on this overwhelmingly beautiful and abundant world. Have compassion. Be kind. Stay in the moment. Find serenity in your faith. Have the courage to feel your feelings fully. Make your own precious life your most absolute favorite possession, and decorate it and celebrate it and submerge yourself in it because one day, it will be gone. And all that matters in the end, is that you savored and favored your life when you had it.

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

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.

The Way

“When things start to feel forced, it’s a sign that you need more joy. You can have it and still do what’s on your agenda for the day. It’s the way you do things and not what you that matters.” – Holiday Mathis

Happy February. We’re one month into 2023. How is the start to the year so far? Have you gone about “your stuff” in any new ways? Have you brought new perspectives to the table? Have you changed any of “your ways” for the better? Where are areas in your life that you could add a dollop of joy by just changing how you go about doing them and/or thinking about them? These are questions that I am pondering as I continue to tweak my new year’s intentions and expectations.

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

Monday – Funday

credit: Rex Masters, Twitter

My husband and I like to “escape” to different locales every once in a while. This year our current passports expire, so we went to get our passport photos taken this weekend at our local Walgreens so that we can renew our passports. Wow. I’ve often said that I have “opposite anorexia” where I assume that I am much thinner than I am, until I try putting on an old (‘shrunken’) pair of jeans. I also have some sort of built in filter in my eyes/head, which makes the objects in the mirror appear to look quite different, and far more appealing than what the passport photo reveals. Nothing makes you want to escape reality more than your own passport photo. It’s one of the great ironies in life.

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

What Should I Wear?

@SketchyWolf_13 (Twitter)

I met a friend for lunch yesterday at the highest end shopping mall in our city. It’s a mall that has a huge Neiman Marcus as one of its anchor stores. All of the major designers have stores in the mall. And I was dressed up compared to most of the other shoppers. I was wearing jeans and a sweater. I’m all for comfort, but I’ve also always thought that dressing yourself is an art. It’s an expression of who you are and your gratitude for the body that gets you around to the different experiences of your life. Athleisure wear is not a 24 hour uniform. It’s boring when everyone looks the same.

Okay, I’m sorry. Rant over. I’m working hard at not becoming a curmudgeon in my older years. Sometimes that inner curmudgeon of mine is harder to stifle than others. But when my Curmudgeon does come out, she always makes a point of at least wearing some lipstick and cute earrings and an interesting pair of shoes.

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

Ferocious Friday

I’ve cut right to the chase today with my favorite for this Friday! My regular readers know that Fridays on the blog are for sharing my favorite stuff in life – books, games, movies, products, websites, etc. Please check out all previous Friday posts for more favorites. Today’s favorite is being demonstrated above.

My daughter told me about the “Happy Color” app. She said that I would love it because it is something that I can do with my hands while I am watching TV. (I could never get the hang of knitting) Happy Color is like paint by numbers without the mess. It’s incredibly satisfying to complete a picture and watch it being “played” like the picture I colored above. Some of the pictures don’t even have black lines so you start coloring “a mystery picture” that starts coming into form, as you fill in the colors. It’s so satisfying!! This game is fun to do before you drift off to sleep. There are endless pages to color, and it is a free app with minimal advertisements. Give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.

Have a wonderful weekend! See you tomorrow!!

(This was one of my “mystery” pictures that came to life as we “watched” football, i.e. me coloring, and my husband sleeping.)

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

Humble Pie

I was intimidated the other day when I came in for my appointment with a Stretch Lab trainer whom I had never met before. She sported a grey crew cut hair style and she was “cut” and “stacked” as my gym rat sons like to say. I was shocked when the trainer had the quietest, most melodic voice I have ever heard. I had to lean in to hear her. And she was utterly gentle, and intuitive, and kind of soft and motherly, in an earthy way.

We got to talking and she said that she had gone through most of her life feeling like she was a total badass and most of the rest of the world was “weak.” When she had problems and relationship breakdowns it was always the other “weaklings’ ” fault. This trainer had been a competitive bodybuilder and marathoner until one day one of her knees gave out. The trainer had to have knee surgery, but there were complications and she ended up having to have three subsequent surgeries. She lost most of her muscle mass and she had to rely on “the weaklings” in her life to help her to crawl her way back to herself. This woman told me that while this experience was incredibly difficult, it had given her whole new ideas about what real strength is in life. She said that true strength is never about going at life, all alone. True strength is being able to ask for help from others when you need it. She said that having to rely on others at times, is what clears your blind spots about yourself and about others. The trainer said that her reluctant bites of humble pie are what brought her back, and propelled her forward, to her best form ever.

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