Are you passing on love or passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
God’s Hands
Tag: inspiration
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
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
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?
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!!
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.
Oppy
Last night my husband and I watched the sweetest little documentary called Good Night Oppy. It was a lovely, delightful watch before going to sleep. Good Night Oppy is about the Mars Exploration Rovers which landed on Mars in 2003 and were only expected to stay functional for a 90 day mission, but both of the rovers, named Spirit and Opportunity, ended up “living” and exploring Mars for years and years. Despite aging, and memory problems, and weathering many journeys and storms, Opportunity or “Oppy” ended up doing her job for almost 15 years! If you need a “feel good”, inspiring movie that takes you out of the drama and negativity that sometimes seems so pervasive these days, watch Good Night Oppy. It’s so pleasant and gratifying and brings out everyone’s “inner geek”. Good Night Oppy shows the excitement of dreams come true, all from the beauty of human ingenuity and teamwork. The documentary even shows how music unites us all. Good Night Oppy reminds us that we can love our own creations, and our machines like we love living things. (Who of us hasn’t shed a tear after selling a beloved car?) Good Night Oppy reminds us of just how far the breadth and the depth of our own love can expand, perhaps even to Mars and into universes beyond.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Monday – Funday
“Why You Should Get Used To Being Misunderstood:
If we say what we want, we will be called aggressive. If we people please or appease, we will be called selfish because it’s never enough.
If we place a boundary, people won’t honor them or will violate them. If we have no boundaries, we’ll drown as we try to meet everyone’s expectations.
If we follow a path that’s not traditional, we’ll be told it’s risky or it won’t work out. If we do what’s expected of us, there will still be people who critique how we do it.
If we have the courage to share our gifts with the world, there will be people who would prefer us to be silent.
If we stay in our comfort zone, we live with the regret of “what if I would have…”
If we decide to break the cycle, there will be people who label us as the problem.
If we stay in dysfunction, the connection and love we receive there will always come with conditions.
If we outgrow relationships, some people will feel abandoned in the process. If we stay in relationships we’ve outgrown, new versions of ourselves won’t be accepted.
The only answer really is to live a life that’s authentic to us and allow people to misunderstand us in the process
Because they will anyway.” – Dr. Nicole LePera, @Theholisticpsyc (Twitter)
I usually make Monday posts on the blog, light, short and funny. (I like to just ease into my week.) However, today I’m feeling a little more verbose. And if you think that I am verbose and prolific, then you need to check out Dr. Nicole LePera on Twitter and/or Instagram. Dr. LePera freely gives out a plethora of helpful, insightful, meaningful, direct, easy to understand “therapy” on a daily basis. I highly recommend reading her stuff. She has given me so much food for thought. I agree with Dr. LePera’s platitudes about 98 percent of the time and even when she is saying things that “I already know”, the daily reminders are so helpful and useful. I found the thread which she recently wrote on making true apologies and amends to be so excellent that I decided to send it to our immediate family text chat because lately I think that our family has been a little lax in that area with each other. (This action of mine got “ignored”, or met with mixed reviews, but the seed has been planted . . .)
As much as I appreciate Dr. LePera’s insights, over the weekend she posted a thread about “forgiving” her younger self for all of the mistakes she had made throughout her lifetime. It was a beautiful thread and I think that forgiving yourself is key for a healthy mindset, but I also think that Dr. LePera should have taken it a step further to thank her younger self for having the guts and gumption to venture into life without all of the accumulated wisdom she has acquired throughout her life, from her studies and from her experiences. Do elite athletes like Michael Jordan have to forgive their younger selves for not being the amazing players that they eventually became, from the get-go? Is anyone an expert at anything from the starting gate? The seeds of talent and desire may be there, but the seeds have to be nurtured and grown, and usually this “seed nurturing” in anyone’s life starts out by some pretty young, naive, inexperienced farmers (our younger selves), who are learning as they go. Of course we young farmers make mistakes! It would be weirder if we didn’t! And we’ve all had to grow the seeds of our lives in all different terrains, with all sorts of unique weather, and conditions, and toxicities. Honestly, what’s more impressive – a naive little seedling that makes it through a big storm, or a hearty tree that is firmly rooted and has the knowledge and ability to rely on the experience of making it through many storms?! We need to thank those little seeds who were us for having the guts to give it all a try, without much knowledge, training and experience to go on. We need to thank the younger versions of ourselves for overcoming our fears in order to be willing to try all of the experiences that have molded us into ourselves today. The younger versions of ourselves helped us to evolve and to become who we are today, right at this very moment. Ponder this: We are currently, right at this moment, the younger versions of ourselves, who ten years down the line, we will be simultaneously forgiving and thanking, all at the same time.
Perhaps all that life really is, is growing from seedling into hearty trees, reaching into the skies of our adventures, constantly learning as we go. Isn’t this action best done with big dollops of forgiveness and gratitude for ourselves, and for others, as we co-create this beautiful, mysterious forest of our shared world?
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.