Tag: Jill Donovan

New Exhibits

I’ve been enjoying some good summer reading while my husband is engrossed in the passion of, and his personal passion for the Tour de France. And from my readings and perusings, I have some new exhibits to add to this Thought Museum which I fondly call “Ash” – Adulting – Second Half. Here is some food for thought to chew on today:

+ What strikes the oyster, does not damage the pearl. – Rumi

I take this to mean that your body can be destroyed by outside forces, and even your mind can be destroyed by outside forces if you let it, but your spirit is timeless and it is always in a state of peaceful observance and it is protected always. Your spirit is your pearl.

+ Don’t yuck on another person’s yums.

We are all allowed to decide what we think is yucky and what we think is yummy. The world is a wonderful, interesting, diverse, “feast for the eyes”, because we all have different yuckies and yummies.

+ The need to convince others represents the need to convince yourself. – Alan Cohen

This is so vitally true, isn’t it? The things that I am absolutely sure about, I would never even think to ask anyone’s opinion about.

+ Life will not postpone our death, so let us not postpone our life.

No explanation needed. Viva!

+ If someone could see your actions and not hear your words, what would they say your priorities are?

This is such an excellent question because it separates you from yourself a little bit, and also from your expectations of yourself, and from your own self-image and your own private “shoulds.” My kids have heard the mantra from me a million times in their growing up years: “Actions speak louder than words. People show you who they are.” Be honest with yourself with this question. It may surprise you that your actions don’t really match what you think are actually your own priorities. The way that this question is worded may help you to get back on track to what you really want your true priorities to be in your life.

+ Yesterday, I received this blog in my email and it was EXACTLY what I needed to “hear.” (I believe that this is how the Universe works. Let Life love you.) Jill Donovan is a jewelry designer and an excellent writer. She is a devout Christian, so it does have a lot of “God” reference, but I still believe that anyone, no matter what their beliefs are, can get something from this post:

https://jilldonovan.com/blogs/practically-speaking/all-cats-are-grey-in-the-dark

Thank you for perusing the museum with me today. If you have any suggestions for good exhibits, please add them in the Comments.

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

Baby Steps

So, I have told everyone and their grandmothers that my major goal this summer was to clean out our home like we are moving, even though we aren’t. I have done this to keep myself accountable. After a lot of soul-searching and going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, my husband and I decided to keep our current home, instead of downsizing and/or upsizing, for the foreseeable future. We plan to remodel some more areas of our current home to better fit our empty-nester lifestyle. That being said, this is the longest we have lived in any single home (11 years), and the piles of accumulation of stuff that 11 years in one place has generated, are daunting. I feel overwhelmed by the project. Interestingly though, I read something yesterday morning that made a whole lot of sense and then afterwards, I can honestly say I made a nice little dent in cleaning out some of my closet and bathroom cabinets.

Jill Donovan blogged yesterday about once hearing this said: “If you can’t reach your goal, it might be because your first step isn’t small enough.”

Lightbulb moment. I have been telling everyone’s grandmother that I am going to be cleaning out my entire house this summer. And then I feel faint. I remain frozen in overwhelm. And before yesterday, the only real steps that I have taken towards this goal, is to tell even more people, willing to be my audience, that I am going to do it. When I look at my goal from this big picture point of view, I feel snowed under (even in this incredibly hot summer). However, if I break my goal down to cleaning out just one small section of my house each day, or even just one small drawer, in one small section of my house, each day, the goal doesn’t seem so bad. At the very least, by breaking it down to tiny steps, I have moved past the proclamation of the project, into the actual “doing it.”

In her blog, Jill says if you find yourself stuck or frozen on something you want to do, but it seems too formidable to even begin, break the goal down to such tiny steps, that you can’t help but take the first step, and from there, the momentum will begin. She says that if you are wanting to write a book this summer, just start with “the title.” If you are wanting to start exercising more, just start parking your car at the back end of the grocery store parking lot. Every major thing accomplished, is an accumulation of a bunch of little baby steps along the way. And the key to getting even more energy towards achieving any goal, is to start moving towards it, even if it is just putting one little toe slightly outside of the starting gate.

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+

(although I actually do have the best dogs – wink, wink)

+ We were watching the college football championship last night and one of the quarterbacks says that in order to create new neural pathways in his brain, he brushes his teeth with his left hand, even though he is right-handed. I tried this last night and this morning. It is surprisingly easy to brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand. I figure that even if I don’t get new neural pathways out of this deal, it is probably helping all of my teeth get a fair and even cleaning.

+ “Let’s start this year with a game I like to call fast-forward.
Go with me to December 31, 2024.
358 days from now.
What ONE thing could you accomplish by that day that would have the most profound impact on your life?” – Jill Donovan

This is how a blog post starts that I read yesterday, by Jill Donovan. She then goes on to talk about how when Michelangelo carved the David, he said that when he looked at the stone, he just chiseled away everything that wasn’t “the David.” She says that we should do the same thing this year with how we answered the question above. Carve time wasters out of our lives that aren’t part of our major goals and focuses. She believes that we should keep our keen focus on our own individual “Davids.” I think that having one major goal that is truly life-changing is interesting and invigorating and ideally, should be our priority, but life is multi-faceted. When deciding what I wanted for 2024, I broke out my desires into eight categories suggested by a New Years Resolution article that I had read:

  1. health
  2. finances
  3. personal development
  4. career
  5. relationships
  6. self-care
  7. home life
  8. free time

Wouldn’t it be interesting to pick a “David” to complete for each of these categories in 2024 by answering Jill Donovan’s question above? After doing this exercise, put a giant star by the one David that really and truly is the major focus and desire and plan to accomplish by the end of this year. Usually I tuck my desires for the new year into an envelope and I put it in a cabinet only to look at it on New Year’s Eve to see how I did. But this year, I plan to keep my “David list” handy, so that when I find myself a little bit bored, or distracted, or off-track, I can come back to my simple David list, in order to remember not to spend too much time in the rubble, but to put my focus back on working on the major masterpiece(s) of my year.

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:

2948. Do you eat leftovers? (I picked an easy question today because we have a lot of “sculpting the David” homework to work on. We do eat leftovers in this house. My husband is still kindly and appreciatively working through the pork and sauerkraut that I made for New Year’s Day.)