Good morning and what a beautiful morning it is here. I wish the same for you. Sundays on the blog are devoted to the talk of the heart and soul (poetry). Listen to your heart and soul today. Write yourself a poem. Make a beautiful connection with yourself. Here is my poem for today:
This is peace.
Light snore of dogs.
Sunlit pattern on the floors.
Easy breezes in the palms.
Lightly tinkling wind chimes.
Easy breathing, no aches or pains.
Unscheduled time.
Choices in the pantry.
Unconflicted mind.
Worries in faraway closed, dark drawers.
Seeping gratitude for all of the love in my life.
This is peace.
Peace is this.
Peace is noticing the good.
And soaking it in.
Becoming one with it.
Peace is truth.
I am peace.
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:
My friend shared this beautiful writing by Cody Bret (see below). It is such a good reminder to not take things personally and to just to be your true authentic self. Always, always focus on the relationship that you have with yourself and make sure that it is a nurturing, kind relationship. The relationship that you have with yourself, is the most important relationship which you will ever have, and it helps to determine the quality of relationships that you will have with others. It is also good to remember that sometimes people just don’t have more room in their lives to foster and to keep any more deep, consuming relationships, and so they can be quite fond of you, and yet still not be available for the depth of relationship which you would like to have with them, and that often has NOTHING to do with how they perceive you. Finally, if you do have a visceral strong opinion about someone else, it’s always a good idea to explore those feelings. Underneath hate, dislike, discomfort is often a big mound of pain and recognition, asking for some healing. Often the people we despise are angels in disguise, leading us to our greatest mending and personal insights.
The way people view you.
Sometimes I think about the different characters I play in everybody’s story.
I’m a terrible person in some people’s narratives and a Godsend in others.⠀⠀⠀
And none of it has anything to do with the person I truly am. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The lens that others view you through is coloured by their upbringing, beliefs, and individual experiences.⠀⠀⠀⠀
Some people see your bright personality as endearing and others see it as annoying.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Some people think you’re weak and emotional and others feel safe to be themselves around you.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Some people think you’re rude and selfish and others respect the way you stand up for yourself.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Some people admire the way you take pride in the way you look and others think you’re conceited.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And none of it has to do with who you truly are as a person.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
What you have to understand is that you have no authority over how people view you so never try to control the way others see you because the only thing that truly matters when the dust settles down at the end of the day is what you genuinely see in yourself.
~ Cody Bret
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:
1224. What’s your biggest challenge in the mornings?
Good morning! Happy Friday!! Happy Best Day of the Week!! On Fridays, I keep things light and syrupy. On Fridays, I discuss things that make life, the art which we live. I like this quote that I read this morning:
“I know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel, or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased life. They are theartists of being alive.” – Frederick Franck
In my mind, Fridays are an especially good day to focus on the art of being alive. On Fridays, I discuss my favorite things in life, and today, my favorite is frozen pancakes by De Wafelbakkers. These are easy, convenient, delicious, medallion sized pancakes that come in all different flavors. They are wrapped in small stacks and all you have to do is zap them in the microwave for a few seconds and they are ready to be served. If you just need a little sweetness in your morning, one chocolate chip or blueberry De Wafelbakker pancake is all you need to satisfy your morning sweet-tooth. De Wafelbakker pancakes are found in 2 pound bags in the freezer section of your local grocery store.
Have a fabulous Friday! 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:
272. Would you prefer to receive bad news sugarcoated or bluntly?
My friend works for a women’s shelter and they were just honored to received a service dog for the shelter. As a dog lover (we currently have three dogs), I looked up what constitutes an excellent service dog. These are the traits which are needed in service dogs: Calm, Confident, Focused (not easily distracted), Eager to Please/Work, Smart, Friendly and Loyal. I’ve never had too many calm dogs in my life (I can’t say that I’m particularly calm myself), but every one of my dogs, throughout my lifetime, have had most of the other traits, listed above, in spades. Interestingly, could we say the same thing about the people in our lives? Could we say the same thing about ourselves?
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:
1562. What three things do you think of most each day?
Yesterday, my husband read my blog (as he faithfully does every day – thank you, love) and he texted that he saw the idea of both me and my daughter’s friend’s mom, giving our daughters our own black leather jackets for their study abroad experience this summer, in this way: “I can see the two of them wearing those jackets with pride and like a coat of armor in the big city this summer. Getting strength and comfort from their moms even though they are far away.” I love this idea. Maybe giving our daughters our own coats, is like giving them symbolic “cloaks of protection.” We mothers probably do subliminal things like this all of the time, without really even thinking about it, or realizing what we are doing. These actions just come with the instincts of being a mom.
Recently two college friends’ young twenty-something sons have relocated far away from their homes of origin, to our city, within days of each other. Both of their mothers texted both me and another college friend who lives in our city, that their sons have moved into our town. We in-town moms, of course, offered our excitement and the reassurance that we were available to them, should any needs arise. My guess is though, these young men will do just fine on their own. (in fact, interference may be perceived as annoying and infantilizing by these proud young bucks) These young men have strong mothers who have raised good, independent, able men, but still, their mothers extended their “cloaks of protection” over their sons, by reaching out to us, their trusted “sisters.”
The tools in our mother box come in many forms. Even the “cloaks of protection” can be invisible, such as daily prayers, or physical, in the form of black leather jackets or “surrogate” moms. There is nothing stronger than the cloak of a mother’s love, except perhaps, the love of the Divine. A mixture of both loves is an armor stronger than steel. And this is why we mothers, who ever since the days that we have released our babies out of our safe wombs in order for them to go on to live their own individual lives, can sleep soundly at night. We mothers profoundly know, from our own deepest depths, that there is an ever-loving cloak of protection, enveloping all of us, in the form of an enormous, interconnected, blanketed web of Love.
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:
+ I read a term that I hadn’t heard of before. “Tourons”. It’s a mix between “tourist” and “moron.” It was first coined by park rangers about guests who decide to pet wild animals such as bison and wolves. (spoiler alert: this rarely goes well) It now applies to anyone who acts like a jerk anywhere on vacation. I’ve often thought that the versions that I like least of myself, are on the sidelines of my kids’ games and matches (thankfully this era has passed), and in airports. I think about 80 percent of people (myself included) have a lot of “touronic” moments in airports and during the boarding of airplanes. This summer, let’s all agree, “Don’t be a touron.”
+ My daughter is studying abroad this summer in London. She and her friend who is studying there with her, decided that a black leather motorcycle jacket would be a good thing to have since it gets a little cooler in England than it does in Florida. I told her, “I think I have just the ticket.” After tunneling into the dark recesses of my closet, I pulled out a lovely, hardly worn black leather motorcycle jacket. She tried it on. She is thrilled with it. She texted a picture of it to her friend, and her friend said, “Oh wow! My mom gave me her black leather jacket, too!” My daughter said to me, “Who knew that all moms would have black leather jackets?!” I smiled to myself. There’s a lot about me that remains a mystery to my daughter. “Honey,” I said. “Believe it or not, all of us moms were once adventurous, twenty-something young women, too.”
+ “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.” – Henry Ward Beecher As a self-admitted “stubborn as they come” old mule, this quote made me think (and even cringe a little). I have often found that my strong will has its positive traits in the ways of going after what I want, but when it veers into “contrarian just to be contrarian”, my obstinateness usually hurts me. All things lie on a spectrum, and self-awareness is the scale that works to balance all things.
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:
2091. Are you the kind of person to step in and try to break up a fight?
This week, take some time to consider “emotional labor”:
“It takes energy to shore up discrepancies. When you feel one thing but must act in some other way, it creates a gap. To shore up those gaps and present one cohesive personality is the very definition of emotional labor. This is why people you can’t be yourself around are so draining. Ask yourself: What energy is being expended to shore up a discrepancy?” – Holiday Mathis
Who can you be your total whole self around without constantly editing, or having to be on high alert, or having to censor yourself or pretend to be something different? These people who know and love and accept the whole of you, are your people. The people who you feel relaxed around and understood by, are your people. Quit trying to conform and contort yourself to fit your square peg self into a round hole. You deserve more. Be true to yourself. Be the best person/support system/cheerleader for yourself. You should definitely be one of your people.
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:
Good morning. I hope this Sunday finds you well. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write a poem today. It will help you to get to know yourself. Sylvia Plath said this: “Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” Here is my “burning away of the peripherals” for today:
Sometimes the surface of the water is still as glass.
Nothing breaking in, disturbs its placidness for long.
Sometimes the surface of the water is flowing.
It has direction and purpose and aim.
Sometimes the surface of the water is choppy and topsy turvy.
It doesn’t know which way to turn.
Interestingly, everything underneath the surface is the same stuff.
It’s the conditions outside of the lake that tend to ruffle the surface.
Underneath the surface, the fishes swim, the rocks lie still, and the algae grows,
Always just being the flourishing interior life of the lake,
totally and blissfully unaware of any disturbance outside itself.
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:
Recently I watched an inspiring video of the tennis great, Novak Djokovic being interviewed about the secret to his success. He said this: “If you lose your focus, if you know . . . . things start to go the wrong way for you, it’s fine. Accept it and come back. And I think that recovery of how long you stay in that emotion is what differentiates you from maybe others. I think the recovery is actually more important than working hard to stay in the present.”
I sent it to my youngest son who is a salesperson. In my way earlier younger years, I was in sales, too. There is a lot of rejection in sales. It can mire you down. But I believe what Djokovic says: feel the pain of rejection, accept it, and then get right back up into recovery mode.
Whatever is going on in your life, accept it. Face the reality of it. “It’s fine.” It’s life. But then put your energy into moving forward into recovery mode. As humans we tend to put a lot of energy in trying to keep things the way we think they should be: steady, problem-free and even-keel. But life doesn’t work that way. And so then we extend a lot of irritated energy into complaining about all of the things that we can’t control in life. As time has proven to us, again and again and again, a lot of life is out of our control. Like Djokovic says, “It’s fine.” It’s life. “Accept it and come back.” Put faith in what you can control which is your attitude and your belief in yourself that you can face and recover from any adversity. You have the tools. Accept it and come back. Accept it and come back. Accept it and come back.
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:
+ I watched an Oprah special recently where she mentioned that an expert told her that when we enter the empty nest, we go from the role of “manager” to the role of “consultant”. It’s a tough transition, sometimes. When we were managers, our children had to take our direction, or face the “dire” (tongue-in-cheek) consequences. As their consultants, they can choose to follow our directions or not. As I have been transformed into a “consultant” for a while now (our eldest son is 28), I am often pleasantly surprised to see two things: My adult children actually seem to (sometimes) want my advice, and sometimes they even actually follow it. And even better: My children sometimes don’t follow my advice, and as the results show, their own decisions were the right ones to make. It’s good to see that my babies have good minds of their own.
+ I love this quote that I read yesterday. I think that it describes the idea of “free will” better than any other way I have seen it written or explained. “Somewhere inside we hear a voice. It leads us into the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether or not to follow.” – Pat Tillman (who left the NFL to serve in Afghanistan, where he died in 2004)
+ “Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
Today’s a seriously serious Full Moon. It’s in Scorpio which is a sign that goes deep and gets real. It’s never afraid to look into the dark shadows. The ancients believed that full moons were times of deep transformation and letting go of what no longer serves you. Scorpio is associated with the phoenix rising from the ashes. This is a perfect day to figure out what needs to be let go of, or transformed in your own life. What activities and experiences (people, places and things) in your own life give you inspiring, loving life energy, and which of these things deplete your life energy and make you feel small? Perhaps making a list of your energy givers, versus your energy depleters will help you to get real with where transformation and change is needed, in order to fill your life with more that “fills” you. Listen deeply for that voice inside of you to shed light on the shadows. Then make small changes in the direction towards the person you wish to become.
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:
948. Do you spend too much time pleasing others to your own detriment?
