1. Truth: The light this morning was dreamy. It was the first time I got to go on the morning walk in over a week. It was 27 degrees, almost a heatwave compared to the cold we’ve been having. The sky was so beautiful in places it almost made me cry with gratitude.
2. Truth: I can’t do everything. I know that must seem obvious to so many, but I still struggle with it. I try to figure out how to do it all, convinced that there’s some formula, that I’ll crack the code if I just keep working at it. And then something happens like the dryer stops working or I forget to buy puppy cookies at the feed store or I notice how badly the bathtub needs recaulked and I feel like I want to lie down and never get up.
3. Truth: The earlier in the day I can take a shower, the better. If I don’t, I do this thing where I schlep around the house in my purple fleece bathrobe doing “just this one more thing” and even though it might seem like I am getting a lot accomplished, really I’m stuck. It doesn’t feel good.
One Wish: On the days that feel hard, when we feel stuck or that there’s too much to do or when something as simple as the light of the morning sky makes us feel like crying, may we be gentle with ourselves.
We need more women that are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, and so disciplined they can be free.
17. Six ways of compassionate living, (also known as the six Paramitas), wisdom from Pema Chödrön,
Generosity. Giving as a path of learning to let go. Discipline. Training in not causing harm in a way that is daring and flexible. Patience. Training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed. If waking up takes forever, still we go moment by moment, giving up all hope of fruition and enjoying the process. Joyful enthusiasm. Letting go of our perfectionism and connecting with the living quality of every moment. Meditation. Training in coming back to being right here with gentleness and precision. Prajna (or transcendent wisdom). Cultivating an open, inquiring mind.
18. A wonderful Zen koan: Student: “I’m reaching for the light, please help me.”
Teacher: “Forget about the light. Give me the reaching.”
26. Bad Luck of Random Mutations Plays Predominant Role in Cancer, Study Shows. Next time I hear someone say stress or using plastic containers or eating dairy causes cancer, instead of punching them in the face I’ll give them the link to this. (Confession: having lost loved ones to cancer, it makes me so mad when I hear anyone trying to assign blame solely to the choices people make — even though I understand they do it to feel safe because it would mean all they have to do to avoid the hell that is cancer would be to make the “right” choices, because it would mean we can control what happens to us).
I’d spent so many years believing that when I lost weight, I would turn into a different person — an easygoing, thick-haired, long-legged, Angelina Jolie type — that it took me awhile to get used to the thinner version of the same old me. But then I realized that I had a life that no one else could have. I stopped writing poetry (which I was terrible at) and started writing what only I could write — my books about emotional eating from a personal perspective. When I gave up wanting to have a life that wasn’t my own, I was able to grow into the life that was already mine, waiting for me to see, inhabit, and live it.
Try this experiment: Instead of waiting to be thin to be happy, try being happy right now. Live as if you were already thin, as if you liked yourself, as if you chose to have the life you have right now.
My bet is that you will discover the real It thing: the riches of your own life that were yours all along.
30. Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying on The Rumpus. Heartbreaking, but so beautifully written and honest — the best kind of writing.
31. Gracias a La Vida (Cover) by Daniela Andrade. Such beautiful lyrics.
1. Truth: The light this morning was dreamy. It was the first time I got to go on the morning walk in over a week. It was 27 degrees, almost a heatwave compared to the cold we’ve been having. The sky was so beautiful in places it almost made me cry with gratitude.
2. Truth: I can’t do everything. I know that must seem obvious to so many, but I still struggle with it. I try to figure out how to do it all, convinced that there’s some formula, that I’ll crack the code if I just keep working at it. And then something happens like the dryer stops working or I forget to buy puppy cookies at the feed store or I notice how badly the bathtub needs recaulked and I feel like I want to lie down and never get up.
3. Truth: The earlier in the day I can take a shower, the better. If I don’t, I do this thing where I schlep around the house in my purple fleece bathrobe doing “just this one more thing” and even though it might seem like I am getting a lot accomplished, really I’m stuck. It doesn’t feel good.
One Wish: On the days that feel hard, when we feel stuck or that there’s too much to do or when something as simple as the light of the morning sky makes us feel like crying, may we be gentle with ourselves.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 