Tag: inspiration

Monday-Funday

Credit: @woofknight, X

I feel so highly distractible these days. I’m late with my blog post again, because someone asked me (specifically) to answer a question on Quora. I don’t know if I am going to answer the question. It’s a tough question and I don’t really write on Quora any longer. (I mostly answered questions there on that site, from 2016-2018) But what happened from this question, which I opened in my email this morning, is that I logged on to Quora, and for the first time in a long, long time, I started going down the rabbit hole of reading my answers to questions which I had written on Quora many years ago. And it was fascinating for me to see where my mindset was in my late forties, and what has stayed the same, and what has changed.

I have kept a daily journal since 2013. I have written on this blog almost daily since 2018. I wish I had started sooner. Friends, if you have never journaled before, do it now. It is so therapeutic and helpful in becoming more self-aware, and more compassionate to yourself when you realize how much you have experienced in your own one life. Some people use Facebook or Instagram as a daily journal and that works, too (although sometimes we don’t allow ourselves to be as honest and vulnerable on those venues as we would be in a private journal). Just do something that allows you to reflect on the “you”, who you authentically are, the “you” who you were, and the “you” who you are becoming. It’s important. You are important. Your life matters. You are your only project. Use tools that help you to reflect on and guide you, and also to compassionately (and passionately) love the greatest project of your life. You.

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:

2877. Do you think childhood or adulthood is harder, and in a few words, why?

Olympic Friday

Hi friends!!! Happy Friday!! Happy Best Day of the Week!!! I just took a quiz asking, “How many gold medals has the United States won in the history of the Olympics?” Like any true, proud, optimistic, ethnocentric American I picked B. 3012, which was the largest number out of the three choices. It turns out a majority of us true, proud, optimistic, ethnocentric Americans also chose the same answer. We chose wrong. The true answer is 1179 gold medals (still, not too shabby).

My regular readers know that Fridays on the blog are devoted to my favorite things. What’s not to love about our stuff? We wouldn’t be true, proud, optimistic, ethnocentric Americans if we didn’t love our stuff. But before I get to my favorite for today, I wanted to give you a bonus mental health trick. We are in sticky, political times. These times tend to bring up edgy, political conversations. We’ve learned with certain people in our lives, who hold different views than us, it is best to just say, “Let’s drop the conversation.” And deep down, if you are both reasonable people who care about the health of your relationship above all else, you take this wise direction. Did you know that you can use that statement with yourself? Say you are in a mental tizzy, beating yourself up for something that you did, or something that you forgot to do, or you are just worked up about your life in general, and your mind is going over and over and over it, like a broken record, you can use the same line on yourself. “Let’s drop the conversation.” And then once you do that, force yourself to be mindful by counting your breaths, or noticing one of your senses, like what you are currently hearing. Treat your monkey mind like your annoying acquaintance who won’t let something go. Train yourself to use, “Let’s drop the conversation.” Your wisest self knows this is for the best for the overall health of your relationship with yourself.

Okay back to stuff: Earlier this summer, when I was in London, I went to the Lush flagship store. Now, not being a big fan of shopping malls, I erroneously assumed that this Lush store was the only one in existence. I excitedly texted my daughter to meet me in this amazing, interesting, one-of-a-kind store, to which she answered, “Mom, we have Lush at the mall.” (This world has gotten so global.) That turned out to be a good thing, because you probably have Lush at your own mall and if not, you can get their products online. The product which I am in love with from Lush is BIG Shampoo. Having fine hair can be such a curse, but this BIG shampoo adds volume to my hair like no other product that I have tried before it. The secret of this shampoo is big chunks of sea salt that give it an interesting, admittedly “hard to get used to” texture, but the results are worth the adjustment. You can buy it in all different sizes and even get free samples at the store, so give it a try. Let’s bring Big Hair Back, 80s Ladies!!

Have a great weekend, friends!!! See you tomorrow!!

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:

2940. Are you holding a grudge against someone or something? If so, what?

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ “Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.” – Amelia Earhart

No matter when we have “popped into existence” we are always on the cusp of the next latest technology and societal progressions, which are right around the corner. Life is immensely interesting at any point, if we let our curiosities supercede our fears.

+ For all of my readers out there who have been called “too sensitive” more than once in your life, here is yet another reminder that your sensitivity is your strength. Below, in bold, is an excerpt from an article written by the scientist, Sarah Quirk:

  1. In every ecosystem there are Indicator Species that are, effectively, “too sensitive.” They are deeply and quickly impacted by minor environmental changes. Scientists closely measure their populations specifically — like a vital sign — to understanding of the health of the overall ecosystem. They act like the canary in the coal mine for biologists to know when something is wrong that may affect everything else in the future.

2. Sensitivity is not just subjective. It is also becoming objective. There is a growing body of research that is showing the genetics of SPS (sensory processing sensitivity), a trait that indicates high levels of environmental sensitivity. It has been correlated with traits like ASD, anxiety, depression, higher levels of emotional processing, ability to read others’ emotions, and more. It’s estimated that 10-20% of studied human populations contain the SPS trait. (As such, maybe we can imagine caring for ourselves in the way that other genetic predispositions require: like fair skin needing sunscreen; sensitivity needing to find the people who want to (to your points) talk it out, reassure you that they love you, learn more and more about themselves.)

3. The evolutionary benefits of having highly-sensitive individuals in your community cannot be overstated. These were people that first noticed environmental changes in taste, smells, sounds, lights; emotional states, potential conflict and danger. These were people who could sense and warn their communities. (My unproven guess is that they were also probably the storytellers, the healers, the guides that led others through the darknesses of being human.)

If you have shut down your sensitive parts, allow them to flow again. They are a gift, not a curse. We all need your precious sensitivities to help guide the way.

+ I was listening to a podcast the other day that talked about the fact that many women deny their anger. In society, we women have learned that “our anger is bad” (and the flip side of this, men have been conditioned that anger is the only acceptable “negative” emotion for them) It is vital to remember that all of us, no matter what our sexual orientation is, feel every emotion on the behavioral spectrum, because we are all humans with complex brains and bodies, living in a complicated world. If you are a woman who is not connected with your angry parts, remember the “Mama Bear”. There is nothing more fearsome and fierce than her. It is important to note that it is vital to allow your own inner “Mama Bear” to protect you, yourself, every bit as much as your own inner Mama Bear protects those who are in her care. You are your own cub.

+ My husband and I were boating over the weekend, and where we usually go boating was overrun with boats and swimmers with red flags, who were collecting scallops, since we are in the middle of a few weeks of “scalloping season” here in our town in Florida. In case you are ever a contestant on Jeopardy, here are a few interesting facts about scallops: Scallops are the only bivalve mollusks (oysters and clams are other bivalve mollusks) which can jump and swim. Scallops cannot shut their shells completely. Scallops are made up of 80 percent protein and low in fat, making them one of the healthiest shellfish options to eat. Scallops have been around since at least the Triassic period. Scallops have many eyes (up to two hundred) Hope I didn’t ruin dinner for you!:

photo credit: Popular Mechanics

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:

2615. What color combination do you love together? (Mine is red and aqua. My two favorite colors look divine together!!)

Ruler

This is the year for Ixora in my neighborhood. Ixora is a shrub (also known as West Indian Jasmine) that has the brightest orange flowers that you ever wanted to see. (Do you remember “Neon Orange” of the ’80s? Ixora’s flowers are a slightly darker, sophisticated, yet poppin’ off version of that color.) This year the Ixora is having its “breakout year.” This year, in our neck of the woods, Ixora is the Taylor Swift of pop, the Michael Jordan of basketball, the Gordon Ramsay of cooks, the Frank Sinatra of blue eyes. And of course, we don’t have any Ixora in our yard. We do not own one Ixora bush. Nada one. This year, our yard looks a little bland and “meh” compared to all of our surrounding neighbors who have rows and rows of Ixora shrubs accenting their homes from every angle. Even my bougainvillea has decided to have an “off year.” Why bloom? That takes work.

I commented, trying to hide my jealousy, to my neighbor across the street, about just how amazing his Ixora looks this year. He said, “I know. I even texted my ex-wife a picture to ask her if she ever remembered the Ixora looking so lovely, when she still lived here.” Hmmm. Now, was that just a little passive-aggressive move really necessary?

No, the truth is, the Ixora has never looked this lovely. It has never bloomed so hard. It has never popped off like this since we have lived here for over a decade. Ixora is having its year. The conditions must be in perfect alignment, because Ixora is having its own shining moment in the sun. Interestingly, the word “Ixora” means “ruler, or lord.” This year, Ixora rules. It’s Ixora’s day in the sun.

I’ve noticed this particular phenomenon every year with our plants. It’s almost like they happily take turns with the spotlight. “This is your year, succulents. Strut your stuff.” “Cannas, you’re looking taller and showier than ever, this year. You bloom, baby!” Gardens, even if you never change the plants, invariably look a little bit different in every single season, in every single year. The plants seem to give each other room to grow, and space to bloom. The individual plants don’t seem to compete for attention. They do their best every year, with the conditions which they find themselves in. And while each year, a particular plant does seem to have its own showcase moment, the others all around it, are what help to make its individual beauty look so amazing. The other plants surround it with their own beauty, and together the overall garden is what makes for the true “feast for the eyes.”

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:

2961. What excites you about the future?

No Place Like Home

My friend and I were having an interesting conversation yesterday about what feels like “home.” My friend is a recent transplant to her town in Florida and while she loves it, she’s not sure if it feels like “home” yet. I’ve lived in Florida for thirteen years now, the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my adult life, and sometimes I’m not even sure if it feels like “home.” If I’m honest, there were times I didn’t feel at “home” even in my own hometown. Truthfully, there are even times that I haven’t felt at home in my own skin. It got me to thinking that “home” isn’t really a place. “Home” is more of a feeling of security, comfort, acceptance, wholeness, belonging, peace of mind, and connection. We intuitively know we are “home” when we feel that perfect mix of these feelings all at once, wherever we happen to be, and with whomever we happen to be with. Yesterday, I felt perfectly “at home” with my dear friend.

I watched an adorable video this morning of a little girl belting out a song from the Disney movie, Frozen at a Waffle House. She was singing and dancing and along with her, a wonderful Waffle House employee was singing and dancing with equal dramatics and enthusiasm. They interviewed the little girl’s mother on the video, and she was gushing about this particular Waffle House. The little girl’s mother said that she and her friends think that it should be called “Waffle Home” instead of “Waffle House.”

We all know that distinction between “house” and “home.” A house shelters us, but a home nourishes us. A house is somewhere to stay, but a home is somewhere to heal. A house can be amazingly grand and perfect in every way, but if it is missing those essential ingredients of warmth and well-being, it’s just a lovely structure. Sometimes we go somewhere we’ve never been and we feel instantly “at home”. This just seems to prove that “home” is something that we carry with us.

We all have heard the adage, “Home is where the heart is.” When we reach middle age and beyond, our hearts have been stretched to many places, to many experiences, to many people, at many different stages of life. Maybe it’s harder to feel “at home” when pieces of your heart are spread all over the wide map of your own one life.

We all can agree, when we do feel “at home”, there is no better feeling. The people, places, animals and experiences which make us feel at home are the best gifts in life.

“Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” – Maya Angelou

“When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.” – Sam Ewing

“Where thou art, that is home.” -Emily Dickinson

“God is at home, it’s we who have gone out for a walk.” – Meister Eckhart

“One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” – Hermann Hesse

“Home is the nicest word there is.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

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:

1344. How would you explain your basic life philosophy?

Dots

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down and it has made all of the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

How many of us, in these middle years of our lives, have already been able to connect some of the dots of our past, which help to make sense of the direction we needed, in order to become the person we are now? How many of us are now grateful for some experiences that at the time seemed horrific/unfair/unimaginable to us, but we now realize helped change the trajectory of our lives for good? I have always held the belief that life isn’t happening to us. It is happening for us. It’s not a game of individual stakes. It is a system that we are a part of, that is evolving towards its own perfection.

The end product of any great work of art, architecture, entertainment, scientific discovery, engineering, physical feats etc. rarely shows the mistakes, the mishaps, the sacrifices, the doubts, the do-overs, the anguish, the pain, the hopes, the fears, the wins, the losses, nor the countless hours of dedication that took to achieve it. We sometimes think that greatness just appeared easily, and out of thin air. Many of the ideas of greatness may seem to appear magically out of thin air, but bringing these ideas into fruition, involved a lot of bold individual “dots” before they are fully connected into the pictures of greatness which we witness today.

Trust that one day, what doesn’t make sense to you now, will someday make complete sense, when you are able to zoom out and see the whole picture, and you are able to connect the dots that form the picture of your own life, as a teeny beautiful part of the overall masterpiece of Life and Creation. You certainly don’t have to live in this state of faith and trust (you have free will), but what is a better alternative?

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:

1292. Have you ever walked a tightrope?

Acceptance

The question is, “What to write about when the world seems like it is a mess?” I started writing this daily blog in 2018. I have written this blog, almost every single day, living through many “messes” already (both globally and personally): the unprecedented pandemic; the leaving of each of my four precious children out from our comfortable, safe nest into their own adult lives; the worst year to date, of the seizures that come with my youngest son’s epilepsy; the long drawn-out, debilitating illness of my mother-in-law which culminated in her death; suicides of loved ones, the craziness of seeing horrific wars erupt, and witnessing multiple divisive elections, multiple hurricanes, multiple societal horrors, etc. etc. . . . . .and yet here I am, sitting in my writing nook, in my peaceful stillness, looking out my large windows at the gorgeous, sunlit nature teeming all around me, my beloved dogs all afoot, dozing quietly and comfortably. Throughout all of the messes, I have experienced so, so many joys: witnessing each of my children thrive into their adulthoods, in both love and in their careers and studies and health; amazing, mind-blowing trips and adventures with my husband, family members and friends; countless delicious meals and vibrant conversations and stimulating walks and fascinating reading, on an everyday basis; and of course, Writing. I write practically every single day and it is one of my greatest joys and sense of being and purpose in my lifetime. Writing is one of my daily doses of joy which I freely give to myself with gratitude for my ability and propensity and enthusiasm to do it.

Messes, big and small, are part of life. Joy is part of life. Just because there are messes does not mean that you should deny yourself your joys. If anything, the bigger the mess, the more we need to double-down on our joys and our sense of purpose and meaning. We might never be able to make sense of the messes (although we often survive the messes, and sometimes even thrive because of them), but we can always find meaning in our own every day experience, even if that meaning is just to focus fully on the sensual, visceral experience of each moment that we are alive and breathing. When we bring ourselves to a deep level of peace, and calm, and awe, we add these beautiful elements into our collective experience, and the more that we do this on an individual basis, the more the joys outweigh the messes, in our own lives and also, in the shared experience of our world. And this is how, the whole world subtly gets lifted out of its painful messes.

“Acceptance is the key to unlocking the door of contentment.” – Celestine Chua

“Acceptance doesn’t mean you agree with, condone, or give up. It simply means you stop fighting reality.” – Dan Millman

“Acceptance does not mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.” – Michael J. Fox

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:

1181. Have you ever built a snowman? (I think snow is a good thing to focus on, during this ridiculously hot summer).

Monday – Funday

Credit: YourTango

While the meme is funny, this past weekend was definitely full of drama, wasn’t it? Besides the assassination attempt (which sadly happened in my hometown, really close to where I grew up), we lost a few quite notable celebrities of my generation’s “coming up days” – Richard Simmons, Dr. Ruth and Shannen Doherty (it’s really surreal to be of the age, where more and more of the household names of the 70s-90s are passing at what feels like a more rapid pace. Gulp.), and the Euros finals, and the Wimbledon finals were played. (Didn’t Princess Kate look beautiful and radiant? It was lovely to see her out and about with her daughter.)

May this week be less of a slap, and more of a pause, for all of us. Let’s all be extra cautious, careful and considerate. There’s intense energy swirling all of us in this world. Let’s all find our calm in the center of our storms.

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:

1046. Finish this sentence as if it were your life: “It was a dark and stormy night . . .” (I had to pick this one because last night we had a window rattler of a storm. Even our collie, Josie, was hiding in the laundry room and she rarely shows fear.)

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Below is the poem which I wrote for today. Write your own poem today. Poems are secret messages from your soul.

When?

When will the world stop its tantrum of anger and fear?

When will the world settle into the stillness that’s here?

When will the world turn to the wisdom of the heart?

When will the world lean into intuition’s level of “smart”?

When will the world stop creating its own pain?

When will the world start behaving like it’s sane?

When I stop my tantrum of anger and fear,

When I settle into the stillness that’s here,

When I turn to the wisdom of my heart,

When I lean into my intuition’s level of “smart”,

When I stop creating my own pain,

I help the world turn “insane” to sane.

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:

1869. Where is the most magical place on earth, in your opinion?

Saturday’s Kick Arounds

+ “If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth, we must still march on.” – Stopford Brooke

I once watched a documentary where an Egyptologist/archaeologist was saying that many things that we hold to be true about ancient cultures have already been proven false because of the technologies of carbon dating and other discoveries from other sources of science. However, much of these new discoveries are still refuted, and left out of the history books, due to the fact that many academics refuse to “lose face.” No one wants to be proven wrong. And yet that is the way of progress – as conditions and perceptions change, so does reality. Finding the truth is often a process of “unknowing” everything that we are convinced that we already know. In an ideal world, wisdom and knowledge and insight, would always, always supercede our egos.

+ I recently read this fascinating story (which lead me to watching a captivating documentary and purchasing a book, of course – story of my curious life) about a strange, eccentric nanny, named Vivian Maier, who took hundreds of thousands of pictures of people, mostly on the streets of New York and Chicago during the 1950s/60s, and never developed the pictures. A man name John Maloof, purchased all of her negatives from a storage center that she had stopped paying for, for the paltry sum of $380, and astonishingly realized what an amazing talent this photographer had, particularly in finding the “soul” in the people of the photographs that she took. Vivian Maier had already died without a husband nor children, so this man made it his mission to make sure that her work was recognized for its greatness. Her photographs are now available in books, offered up in galleries all over the world, and many consider her to be one of the “greats” of street photography. Check out her website here, and enjoy this interesting little rabbit hole: https://www.vivianmaier.com/ If there was ever an artist who did the art, simply for the obsession of doing it for art’s sake, Vivian Maier is it.

+ One of my best friends from college texted us that she had just landed in Dublin, Ireland for her summer vacation. Coincidentally, my daughter, who is studying in London this summer, happens to be visiting Dublin this weekend with her friends. My husband said to me, “Can you imagine if you had been a prophet, and as you and your friend were sitting in a cozy, little dorm room in Virginia, you said, “We will be lifetime friends and more than three decades from now, you and my daughter will be in Dublin on the very same weekend?” I love this thought. It warms my heart. My deepest belief is that coincidence is just God being anonymous. Coincidence is always a delicious, enticing, comforting mystery.

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:

815. Have you ever been in a newspaper?