Tag: passion

Shiny New Things

I’ve been researching a new project in the last couple of weeks. Who knows if anything will come from it, but it has been so energizing to explore something new. I wake up excited and early and raring to go. And feeling this new passionate aliveness and inquisitiveness makes me realize how long it has been since I have felt this way. And feeling this new energy coursing through my body, makes me understand how important it is to always be exploring new things for ourselves. It is this yearning and this desire that makes life move forward. It is curiosity and taking action on our curiosities, which keeps us young and energized and engaged with living our lives.

When we were raising our big family, it was important for me to put my focus on my family. Raising our family was not just my passion, but essentially, it was my true career. I was a stay-at-home mom to our four children (and our constant menagerie of animals). But they’re all grown now and it is not healthy for our relationships going forward, for me to keep an intense focus on their lives. I have dropped the reigns. It’s time for me to take a hold of that intense energy of mine, and put it to use for me, and for my husband, and for these exciting next chapters, in this new phase of life.

If we aren’t intentional about where we put our time and our focus, that’s when we can get into trouble. We are going along in our ruts, plowing along with our many obligations, staying in our comfort zones, and then something new and shiny, comes into the mix, and that precious feeling of excitement and freshness can sometimes lead us down dark alley ways. But if we are intentional, and we are honest with ourselves, we can consider where life is feeling a little stale or rote or even unhealthy, and then we can choose to infuse new energy and healthy new explorations into these particular areas of our lives. We can enjoy the magical feeling of new goals and the excitement of working towards and achieving these new goals. We can stop numbly going along our long-tread usual routines, unintentionally using only quick fixes/distractions to make us feel better along the way. (i.e. sugar, shopping, doom-scrolling, alcohol/drugs, getting overly involved in drama with friends and family/politics, etc.) Typically, intentional choices serve us so much better than our unconscious, unintentional diversions.

When I am starting to feel restless and bored and frustrated, I look at my life like it is a pie chart. These are the types of categories that are typically suggested to use for your own life’s pie chart:

Career/Work/Vocation

Home life

Health and fitness

Recreation and hobbies

Friends

Family

Relationship/Romance

Personal growth/Spirituality

Self care

Vacation/Travel

If you were honest with yourself right now, and you made a pie chart of your life, where would that largest percentage of your pie chart land? Is there an area in your life, where your inner self has been quietly screaming for you to change things up, and to give it more time and focus? Does your pie chart look balanced? Can you take some time/focus from one area of your pie chart and add that precious time to another area that feels lacking? Which part of your pie chart do you yearn for something new? Which part of your pie chart would you like to infuse new energy and excitement and fresh new plans and goals?

I saw a post this morning on X, where a woman posted a picture of her friend finishing up one of his crocheted rugs. It was a beautiful rug and her friend, a middle-aged man was clearly engrossed in creating it. She posted the picture because she said that her friend was embarrassed by his new hobby, and she was afraid that he would stop doing it. She sees how much he loves his new hobby and the creations that come out of it, and she doesn’t want him to lose his passion. She asked people to like the picture, in order to encourage him. The post (not even a day old) has 36,000 likes and over 5,000 comments stating things like the football player, Rosey Grier, apparently loved to crochet and to do embroidery, and many people calling this woman’s friend nothing short of a “badass artist.” (one person asked to purchase his pattern) Another commenter spoke of a huge, muscled-up security guard in her hometown who loved to design and to sew frilly, fancy dresses for his granddaughters. Many commenters stated that they felt inspired to try a new hobby, by seeing this post.

Life is energy. Energy moves things forward. What area of your own life needs an infusion of energy and enthusiasm? How can you make that happen? Where would you like to feel excited and engaged again? What baby steps can you take towards that excitement and engagement?

Bye, bye now. Wouldn’t this be a good time to go make a pie (or a pie-chart)?

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:

2200. What is a recent compliment you’ve received?

DO NOT Help Me Write

****I’ll start by saying that recently, a “Help Me Write” by Google feature, has popped up when I am writing my blog, whenever I take a moment to think, or if I go back to parts of my post to make changes. I find this incredibly annoying. I will NEVER utilize this feature. (thus the typos, the awkward sentences, and my own, creative-licensed grammar rules) I am saddened by the idea of anyone’s individual “voice” to be taken out of our own unique writing. Our writing should be an extension of us, as individual as our fingerprints and our handwriting. We are all authentic, unrepeatable individuals. Even identical twins are not copies of each other because it is impossible to have the very same identical experiences, every moment of the day. Just as our DNA, our genes, our proclivities and our heritage make up the whole of us, so do our experiences, and our reactions to our experiences, and all of this is uniquely unrepeatable and precious. When I write, it comes from my own uniquely unrepeatable heart’s energy, not from an inhuman algorithm.****

Speaking of incredibly unique and authentic individuals, recently I purchased something on eBay, and I got into a conversation about the item with the seller. The seller turned out to be the daughter of two extremely intriguing, interesting, colorful characters (now deceased) who were a married couple and utterly devoted to each other, and also to their individual, exotic pursuits. The husband, Mentor Huebner was a prolific artist who worked for movie studios in Hollywood and created conceptual designs for 250 movie sets including the movies like Blade Runner, Ben Hur, King Kong, Lord of the Rings, etc. According to his wife, Mentor enjoyed painting so much that she would often have to beg him to stop painting, just to eat. Because Mentor was employed by movie studios, he didn’t have to rely on collectors buying his paintings for his living, and he was known to turn down exorbitant offers if he didn’t like the buyer, and other times he gave away his paintings (worth $1000s of dollars) to people whom he did like. The wife, Louise Huebner, was pronounced “The Official Witch of Los Angeles County” at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968. She considered herself to be a generational witch and she wrote many books and appeared on many radio programs and talk shows such as The Johnny Carson Show, discussing occult matters. When the daughter mentioned her parents in our message exchange, I went down a rabbit hole (as it is so easy to do on the internet) to learn more about these fascinating people.

Mentor Huebner died in 2001. In 2003, Louise Huebner created a website devoted to his life and his art. Louise died in 2014, but the Mentor Huebner website remains. Underneath a running clock, are these words:

Revelations of Mentor’s Life and Art

Public and Personal

Will Continue to Appear On This Ever to Be Expanding Site

Forever!

Or at the Very Least as is True of the Universe

Until the End of Time.

I find exotic, unapologetically authentic, audacious, passionate people so interesting and inspiring. They live their lives so bravely and honestly and unapologetically. They live lives as they feel inclined and guided to do, and they are not at all concerned with what other people’s opinions about how they should conduct themselves. They are inimitable. I don’t imagine that they go to their graves with regrets.

Clearly the Huebers shared a passionate love and mutual admiration for one another. Louise wrote loads of poetry and almost all of her poems were devoted to Mentor. A poem that she wrote ten days before Mentor passed, compares herself to a Pharaoh’s wife terrified to be put in the tomb alive with the Pharaoh’s body. In her poem, “Until Death Do Us Part” Louise Huebner writes, “I however enter my grave of grief most willingly.” She compares herself to the Egyptian wife: “But there is a thing she and I seem to have in common ~ we ignore everything we have been taught and so often are inappropriate.” She ends the poem with this verse filled with her passionate devotion to her husband, again comparing herself to the ancient Egyptian Pharoah’s wife: “Yet she spent the rest of her life screaming to get out of her husband’s grave, and it looks as though I will spend the rest of mine, screaming to get in.”

Everyone has a story. You do, too. It’s more interesting than you could possibly realize. Start telling your story. Better yet, start living it. Be true to your innermost longings, inclinations and intuitions. You deserve to experience the truest, fullest version of you. We all do. Imagine a world of inimitable, uninhibited, passionate, talented, unapologetic people, living lives true to themselves. What an amazing, exhilarating world it would be (and not one of us would be utilizing Help Me Write/Live/Think/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:

467. Do you have a scar? If so, how did you get it?

Prime Time

I really enjoy listening to the speeches given by Deion Sanders, the former professional football and baseball player, and now head football coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, college football team. Deion has always been passionate, intense, and inspirational. He’s been an attention-seeking and an attention-getting character since he first started emerging as a big football star at Florida State University. He went on to mostly be known for his years playing in the NFL (while playing major league baseball in the off season), winning two Super Bowls during his career, and once being named “NFL Defensive Player of the Year.” Deion Sanders’ latest gig is being “Coach Prime”, the head football coach for the Buffaloes, for whom two of his sons play on the team. Yesterday, the Buffaloes lost to Stanford, 46-43 in double overtime. This happened despite a 29-0 Buffaloes lead at halftime. Needless to say, Coach Prime was not happy. Needless to say, Coach Prime hates to lose. Before I touch on the part of Coach Prime’s press conference which was held after the game- the part which really got me to thinking, I should mention that five hours ago, Coach Prime tweeted this: “Lord I thank u for everything. I’ve learned to accept the bad with the good because if it weren’t for the bad I wouldn’t know what Good is.” Four hours ago, a member of the Colorado sports press, Brian Howell tweeted this statement: “Side note: Before the season, a lot of people wondered how Deion Sanders would be after losses. I’ll say this: Win or lose, he’s been great with media after games. Clearly upset tonight but told us, “You deserve my best and I’m gonna try my best to give it to you.”

Clearly, at age 56, Deion Sanders seems to have matured a great deal, and he works to be an example for the youth whom he coaches. During the press conference, Deion was visibly disappointed and frustrated with how the game ended. He spoke a lot about complacency and how much he can’t stand complacency. This is how the Oxford Dictionary defines complacency: “a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements.”

Here is the part of his conference that perked my ears up enough to really think about it and to write about it this morning:

“Make up your mind whether you’re in love with this game or you are in like with it. When you like it, that’s just a button you push. That’s what we do on social media. I, without a shadow of a doubt, am 100 percent in love with this game. When you love something you give to it unconditionally. You give it everything you got. Match me with my passion. Match me with my heart. Match me with my love. Match me with my consistency. . . .I love (the game) so much, but the game don’t even occupy the ability to love me back, that’s a strange love isn’t it?”

No, Deion, that’s not strange. That is the actual definition of true, unconditional love. I decided to use Deion’s speech for myself, for use in my own life. Perhaps you would want to join me in this little exercise? I have decided to list (privately) about five activities/occupations/roles in my life that I believe are the most important things to me. I am going to ask myself if I have grown complacent in any of these areas. I want to make sure that the people/places/things/actions which I am in love with, are getting my full passion, my heart, my love and my consistency. I don’t want to just smugly press “the like button” on the things which mean the most to me. That’s not living fully. That’s not living passionately. That’s not living with the unconditional love which is given to us freely, with the gift of life. Thank you, Coach Prime. I got the message. And it’s a beautiful message and not strange at all.

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

Paintings

Gregorio Catarino is a man on Twitter who posts wonderful pieces of art every single day. This artwork above is by Zlata Devic Salaj. They say that dogs and their humans often resemble each other. Clearly, these two beauties above would be happy to say that this is an absolutely true statement. I found this picture to be particularly captivating because it reminded me of this tall, elegant white-haired woman who would walk two stunning, dignified white Borzois around our neighborhood. I haven’t seen the three of them in a while, but I imagine that I was embarrassingly obvious about just gaping and staring at the group of them, when they sauntered on by. The woman and her canine companions looked like a walking portrait, coming right out of a fashion magazine.

Speaking of art, I attended my second Zen art class yesterday. My teacher, and my husband, and my friends are being so lovely and encouraging and complimentary. I haven’t taken a formal art class since college and I had forgotten how much I love to create art. My husband said to me the other day that he has always loved and admired my artistic side, and that made me happy and sad at the same time. I wish I hadn’t let my interest in art go dormant for this long. I find myself shocked and disappointed when the two hour class is over. I’ve decided that I may take an art class for the rest of my life, much like one of the students I met yesterday. Cheryl is 85 and an amazing artist who has sold many paintings. She told me that she realized her own affinity for art when her daughter was three. Her daughter was given one of those old fashioned tin watercolor paint sets for her birthday, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Cheryl decided to show her daughter how to paint, using a dandelion as her “model” in their yard. Cheryl fell in love with painting that very day. She told me that she still has her original dandelion painting. Cheryl also told me that she never plans to die. And I imagine that Cheryl won’t die. At the very least, her spirit will live on through her beautiful paintings.

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

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.

Monday – Funday

Monday Memes - 50+ Funny Memes To Start Your Week

We had a nice weekend. I read two interesting books, and my husband took two long bike rides on his favorite trails, and we planted a couple of new flowers in our garden and did some mulching together, among other things. One of the books that I read this weekend was about the Japanese concept of “ikigai”, which roughly means living in the flow, with a sense of passion and purpose. We lived a lot of our own “ikigai” this weekend, and I hope to put even more of my ikigai, into the week ahead.

❤️ What is Ikigai & How to Redefine Purpose | Management 3.0

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

Find Your Stoke

The other day I was a little bit restless, perhaps a bit bored. I was flitting around from one thing to another, not really accomplishing anything. I was aggravated so I started poking into my family’s business, being annoying and relentless in the spreading of my agitation around like butter.

My youngest son (a senior in high school) said, “Mom, you need to find your stoke.”

“What the hell does that mean?” was my flash, edgy answer.

“Like Ralphie loves to swim.” ( Ralphie is our labrador retriever who thinks our pool is a daily dose of heaven provided for him, at the scratch of a door.) “You need to find what excites you today,” he said bluntly and correctly.

I think that is the funniest thing about kids growing up – the role reversal. How many times did I have to remind my kids to “find your stoke” by showing them their favorite toys or telling them to call their friends or even assigning chores for them to do?

Why is it so easy on some days to get lost in “your stoke” and other days to completely forget what excites you in the first place? Some days are so purpose-full and other days, your insides are screaming, “What’s my purpose?” I like it that I have raised centered kids who sometimes have to remind me to get balanced and centered, too. We all need that reminder from time to time.

“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” – Bishop T.D. Jakes

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Harold Whitman

I’m Motivated to Be Inspired

After watching history’s most boring Super Bowl last night and waking up to a gray Monday, I had difficulty deciding what to write about and even more difficulty getting the gumption up to write. It seems fitting that lately I have been pondering the difference between motivation and inspiration. Today seems like the right day to ponder it on-line.

Motivation typically comes from outside forces. You feel compelled to do something because something inside of you says that you “should” do it, or you may face consequences that you don’t want. Motivation comes from a reason or a “motive” for doing something, so that you get the result that you do want. Our sources of motivation are typically external. You are motivated to get a new car, so you go to work and save your money. You are motivated to fit into your new bikini, so you go to the gym. I am motivated to write this blog post, because I have made the promise to myself and to my readers that I will write a blog post every day.

Inspiration is internally generated. The word literally means, “in spirit.” When you are inspired, some internal passion is bubbling up inside of you just screaming to come out. Inspiration typically isn’t as concerned with “the end result”, as it is something that just wants to be created, for creation’s sake. After driving away from our eldest son’s first apartment, driving away from his completed childhood, and coming to the realization that the stage of my life, that was mainly focused on raising and molding four young children, will soon be coming to a close, I was inspired to start writing my blog. I was inspired to internally and publicly explore what this stage of life means to me and to my family.

My husband asked me an interesting question the other day. He said, “Would you rather be a beacon or an icon?” I answered “Beacon,” without pause, but that is mostly because I like living under the radar. I wouldn’t want to have to wear make-up to walk out to my mailbox, for fear of paparazzi jumping out of my bushes. I like a level of anonymity. Further, I liken beacons to be like lighthouses, and I like to think that my experiences, perceptions and lessons learned, could be helpful not just to me, but to others, as well. I think that today’s day and age has way too many icons and not nearly enough beacons.

Anyway, sometimes my blog posts are just coming from motivation to stay on track, keep my promises to myself and to others, and sometimes my blog posts are so inspired, that I have jumped out of bed to jot down my ideas and have panicked when my computer doesn’t boot up fast enough, as the words seem to be spilling from my heart at record speed. I imagine my readers are perceptive enough to see the difference. It would be ideal to live life in a state of constant inspiration, but for times when that passion lies dormant, motivation is enough force to keep the train moving on the tracks, until the next spurt of inspiration comes along.