Monthly Archives: March 2015

Something Good

6 Replies

1. Good stuff from Brain Pickings: The Velveteen Rabbit, Reimagined with Uncommon Tenderness by Beloved Japanese Illustrator Komako Sakai and The Well of Being: An Extraordinary Children’s Book for Grownups about the Art of Living with Openhearted Immediacy.

2. Sorry confusion from Seth Godin.

3. Shared by Austin Kleon in his weekly newsletter: Credit is always due, and A meditation teacher on surviving a plane crash, and the horrible consequences of addiction — Harris Wittels, Television Comedy Writer, Is Dead at 30, and RIP Harris Wittels. 1984-2015.

4. I Am A Dad With Stage 4 Lung Cancer, And Here’s What I Know Now. Oren died on Saturday.

5. Wisdom from Jonathan Fields, “Build things that speak louder than you ever could.”

6. Audience growth, from Paul Jarvis, in which he shares this wisdom,

You may think that developing your own unique voice is easy, since, hell, it’s your voice. Sadly, this is not the case, especially in writing. Finding your voice takes work. It’s part internalization, part confidence, and part a damn lot of practice. I’m not sure developing your voice as a creator is something you can ever completely win at—you have to continually check in with yourself to see if it consistently aligns.

7. ‘Imitation Game’ Writer Graham Moore Wanted To ‘Say Something Meaningful’ During Oscars Speech.

8. Neil Gaiman + Amanda Palmer perform I Google You.

9. Good things from Terrible Minds: In Which I Answer Why Adults Read So Much Young Adult Fiction and The Social Media Rules That Govern My Slapdash Online Existence.

10. New Study Shows Marijuana Is 114 Times Safer Than the Deadliest Legal Drug in the U.S.

11. Where Do Our Stories Come From? by Laurie Wagner.

12. Good things from Zen Habits: You’re Not Doing Life Wrong and Getting Lost in Just Doing.

13. Let Me Fix That For You: A Dramaturge Explains What’s Wrong With Patricia Arquette’s Speech.

14. Writing Workshop Is Not Group Therapy on Brevity.

15. Good stuff about yoga on Elephant Journal: On Being Fat, Yoga Teacher Training & the Right to Be Happy and Why I Quit Teaching Yoga & Hope to Never Go Back and What Nobody Tells You About Yoga.

16. Wisdom from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, (thanks for sharing, Lise),

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

17. Wisdom from Louis C.K., (thanks to Meg Worden for sharing),

Self-love is a good thing but self-awareness is more important. You need to once in a while go “Uh, I’m kind of an asshole.”

18. Why It’s So Wrong—But So Right—To Sleep With Your Pets.

19. How to Spot A Narcissist and Walk Away on MindBodyGreen. I worked for a narcissist for seven years and walking away was one of the best things I ever did for myself.

20. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

The main thing about this practice and about all practice is that you’re the only one who knows what is opening and what is closing down; you’re the only one who knows. There’s a slogan: “Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one.” What it’s saying is that one witness is everybody else giving you their feedback and opinions (which is worth listening to; there’s some truth in what people say), but the principal witness is yourself. You’re the only one who knows when you’re opening and when you’re closing. You’re the only one who knows when you’re using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you’re opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is—working with it rather than struggling against it.

21. the bohemian life on SF Girl by Bay. I love this look, the wood and the greenery, the styles and the colors.

22. Revenge Porn Dude Wants His Personal Info Removed From Internet Lolol.

23. Stay on Your Surfboard from Kate Read.

24. Wisdom from musician Alexi Murdoch,

First you must free yourself from the idea of your voice. From the very sound of it. You must throw off the yoke of familiar language. The habits of rhythms and structures that are familiar. They are limitation. You have to expel even your greatest teachers. They too have become an obstacle to your freedom. But most of all you have to be honest. You have to be yourself. You have to be fearless — no, more than that — you have to be mindless of whatever might be the consequences of being so. Only by this way will you arrive at true revelation.

25. The Death of a Dream (Body) from Sunni Chapman.

26. RAISING ZAY: A family’s journey with a transgender child.

27. I know a mama who. (Thanks for sharing, Rachel).

28. Ben Merrell, a local tattoo artist who does beautiful work. I know where I’ll be going for my next session.

29. Poodle Science.

30. A blessing written by Jan Richardson,

That our receiving may be like breathing: taking in, letting go.
That our holding may be like loving: taking care, setting free.
That our giving may be like leaving: singing thanks, moving on.

31. Maryland Sanitation Truck Driver Called Hero for Helping Homeless Families.

32. Changing the Culture from Rachel Cole.

33. Alt Summit :: Keynote Address from Lisa Congdon.

34. Good stuff on BuzzFeed: Watch Black Men From Age 5 To 50 Respond To The Word “Police” and 17 Times Fitspiration Was Wrong, So We Fixed It.

35. IT HAPPENED TO ME: My Fitbit Reignited My Eating Disorder.

36. 15+ Before-And-After Photos Of Cats Growing Up on Bored Panda.

37. Why Co-Sleeping is No-Sleeping.

38. I am grateful, now fuck off.

39. Down In The River To Pray by Allie Feder & Ben Stanton. I bought a copy and can’t stop listening to it.

40. I’LL TRY ANYTHING ONCE: I Quit the Gym for Free YouTube Workouts.

41. Warning: “Hanging in there” is destroying your health.

42. Just a few reasons why we’re so excited for “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”

43. Busy Is a Sickness.

44. The Staggering Bullshit of “The Secret” by Mark Manson.

45. The 9 Things No One Tells You About Scattering Ashes.

46. The Subtly Offensive Phrases We Need To Stop Saying.

47. Your Difficulties Are Your Path from Jack Kornfield.

48. A blessing from Ronna Detrick.

Dear One:

There are times in which you just have to do what you know to be right, what your intuition tells you, what you can clearly discern as the right course of action. Trust-trust-trust that you know what you’re doing. And let everything else go – every fear, every anticipated reaction, even every expected risk and certain cost. It’s all going to work out.

I’m sure of this because I am Abigail and you are my daughter, my lineage, my kin.

49. Here’s your permission slip to embrace slow from Yogi Sadie.

50. My First Night Homeless on Medium.

51. The Joy of Books isn’t in Ownership from Be More With Less.

52. If Reporting A Robbery Was Like Reporting A Rape.

53. Finding Joy in My Father’s Death by Ann Patchett.

54. A new kind of burlesque.

Day of Rest

11 Replies

My heart and mind have moved in and out of a state of anxiety and discomfort this week. I’ve felt confused and disappointed, bewildered and depressed. I have witnessed a lot of conflict, both internal and external.

  • I watched as a poet schooled people, specifically white people, on how to (and not to) engage with her work. It was painful to read, to dig deeper and see the comments, to know that I was in no way prepared to understand or take part in such a discussion.
  • Another conflict arose around the sharing of one artist’s work by another without credit being immediately given, with the original artist sharing exactly why the situation was problematic. I see this so often, when something could easily be searched, the original author discovered and credited, but we don’t take the time, don’t take it seriously enough.
  • Someone who recently left his teaching position in an MFA program wrote Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs Now That I No Longer Teach in One, to which Chuck Wendig wrote a rebuttal, An Open Letter To That Ex-MFA Creative Writing Teacher Dude. Everything about this discussion makes my heart hurt.
  • People argued over the color of a dress, and then many others complained about them wasting time on the issue when there were so many more important things to be thinking and arguing about.
  • A woman who called herself the Wellness Warrior died and a cancer surgeon wrote this article reflecting on her death. The whole thing hurts, is so confusing.
  • MindBodyGreen published this article, 5 Reasons To Eat Gluten (Funny), (I didn’t find it funny at all, less so because it’s written by an author who thinks sugar is evil and claims to have cured her thyroid disorder through her good choices) AND they also published 5 Red Flags That Show You’re Taking Healthy Eating Too Far, which essentially says the exact opposite as the other article. I like this website, but the contradictory information they publish can be so confusing.
  • A writer whose work normally leaves me so inspired, so encouraged, is offering a new program, “not a diet but a DO IT,” and everything about it feels so wrong, makes me so sad. It also just so happened to be National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
  • I continued to fight with myself about Ringo’s injured toe — thinking I had maybe made a mistake not taking him to the vet when it first happened, unsure if it was going to heal, worried it would get infected, watching how I obsessed over needing to be right and in control. When I wasn’t fussing about that, I was worried I’d have to cancel my Saturday morning yoga class again due to weather, and I was a little relieved by the possibility, which I immediately felt guilty for.
  • I seem to be hellbent on running myself completely ragged — Feast, the Open Heart Project, the Daily Dharma Gathering, teaching yoga, more yoga teacher training, reading all the books, practicing, studying, blogging, a demanding job that keeps asking for more, a body that is tired tired tired, a mind and heart that are bewildered.

I know that for many people, most of these conflicts would be intellectually interesting but not have a real impact. Many other people can observe these things from a distance, manage to not take them personally. I’m not like that. I’m porous. When there is discord, I’m like a tuning fork that responds, echoing the pain from somewhere deep inside of me. When I was feeling at my worst this week, had sunk down to that place of “why should I even bother?”, I saw this. A sweet little short film that captured exactly what it can feel like to be me.

I need to check myself before I wreck myself. I am attempting a major shift to a whole new paradigm, and I need to be gentle with myself. This is going to take time. I remind myself that there are three stages to knowing: first you know something intellectually, then you feel it, and then, finally, you embody it. I have to remind myself how deeply worn the groove is of my habitual patterns, deep ruts worn into my brain, a connection between first thought and action that is lightning speed, and to interrupt it would be like trying to get off a a roller coaster half way through the ride. It’s such a long process to shift things and it’s easy to get impatient, to feel like it’s never going to happen.

The best I can do for now is to try and keep from generating more suffering. I can continue to practice, to simply be with myself and allow things to arise without an agenda. Rest in the moment, relax into basic goodness. Rest, relax, release, surrender. May we all be gentle with ourselves, kind and gentle reader, as we do the things that are not simple, not easy, but still so important.