Category Archives: Alexandra Franzen

Something Good

yellowfall

So great to be partnering with Wanderlust to share this list with a larger audience.

1. Another chance to start over, wisdom from Seth Godin.

2. Good Question: How can I stay creative when I have to sit and type all day long? and No regrets, wisdom from the wicked smart Alexandra Franzen. What I love so much about her perspective is she is able to be both gentle and fierce at the same time.

3. One day you’re a dog. The next day, you’re in space. by Andrea Scher. Even though this piece is about a very personal experience, it’s completely universal at the same time. And, the fact that she published it on September 11th gave it a whole other layer of meaning. It made me think of all the times in my life this has happened — “Sometimes life changes like that – one day you’re a dog, the next day you’re in space.”

4. The Digital Breakup from The School of Enough, (shared on Be More With Less). This makes a really compelling argument for challenging yourself to make a change to your digital habits. I want to try it, but I confess it also makes me a bit shaky just thinking about it.

5. My Plan On 9/11. One person’s memory of “that day.” This line alone is worth the read, “In some ways, hope is just a lie in a prom dress.”

6. Confessions and Lessons from a Former Approval Addict on Tiny Buddha.

7. Omission: Choosing what to leave out, on why writing is choosing what to leave out.

8. Good stuff from Chookooloonks this was a good week list: One woman’s mission to photograph every Native American tribe in the US, and 10 Questions With Brené Brown. Also from Chookooloonks, accept your nomination.

9. The Gentle Art of Trying Something & Sucking at It on Zen Habits.

10. The “New Age Thinking Will Make Me Thin” Diet from Isabel Foxen Duke. Word. Confession: I went to therapy for my dis-ordered eating at first because I thought it was the magic bullet to getting the body I wanted, NOT because I wanted to get well — that came later.

11. How to Do a Career Change Detox from Laura Simms.

12. 7 Ways Happy Couples Deal with Disagreements Differently from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

13. News Flash: Fear Does Not Respond Well to Self-Discipline from Jennifer Louden.

14. What All Writers Can Learn From Mitch Hedberg.

15. So this happened: The ‘Dear Fat People’ video is tired, cruel and lazy – but I still fight for the woman who made it, and “Dear Fat People” isn’t satire: Despite the backlash publicity, it’s unlikely to make Nicole Arbour a star, and This comedian’s YouTube channel was shut down for fat-shaming, and What I Want to Say to Fat People: Response to Nicole Arbour, and Response: Dear Fat People from Meghan Tonjes.

16. This Couple’s “Drunk History” Version Of How They Met Is Pure Gold.

17. Two powerful posts on Facebook in response to National Suicide Prevention Day, one from Andrea Gibson and another from Amy Tingle.

18. I was a teenage Fox News robot: Sean Hannity destroyed my childhood.

19. Recipe: Easy Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers! With Avocado. Looks so yum, although if you put sweet potato and avocado in just about anything, I’m going to want to eat it.

20. ‘Eat Clean’? The Smug Instagram Lifestyle Might Not Be So Healthy After All. If you’ve never heard of orthorexia, you need to read this.

21. How to help your family and save lives from Neil Gaiman.

22. 9 things I’ve learned about marriage from being a couples therapist.

23. Your FitBit Is Ruining Your Relationship with Your Body – Here Are 3 Reasons Why.

24. the big quiet from Sas Petherick.

25. How to help Syrian refugees? These 6 groups you may not know are doing important work.

26. Hijacking Genocide: An Open Letter.

27. 10Q. 10 Days. 10 Questions. “Answer one question per day in your own secret online 10Q space…When you’re finished, hit the magic button and your answers get sent to the secure online 10Q vault for safekeeping. One year later, the vault will open and your answers will land back in your email inbox for private reflection.” This year’s 10 actually started yesterday, but you can still join in. I’ve done it for the past few years, and it’s really fun. I always learn something about myself answering the questions, and am surprised and inspired when I read my responses from the year before.

28. This Is What Happened When I Welcomed A Refugee Family Into My Home.

29. A large group of snazzily dressed men gathered outside a Connecticut public school on the first day of classes.

30. There’s More to Life Than Being Happy.

31. How to Finally Clean out Your Closet for Good, a really great strategy from Be More With Less. “When I finally cleaned out my closet for good, peace replaced guilt, joy replaced frustration, and love replaced fear.”

32. How Not to Do It All from Zen Habits. I should probably just commit to starting each and every day by reading this. My name is Jill, and I’m a do-aholic.

33. The Loving Our Body Lie and Fat People and Faulty Assumptions from Dances with Fat.

34. Meditation: Beyond the Practice with Susan Piver on The Good Life Project Radio, two of my favorite people talking to each other about one of my favorite topics.

35. “What My Recovery Looks Like”: Jennifer Matesa on Freedom.

36. Wisdom from John Lubbock, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

37. I’m Fat and I Don’t Want to Assimilate into Diet Culture (And No, I’m Not Sorry).

38. Zen Foxes: Photographer Documents Wild Foxes Enjoying Themselves.

39. The Tiny Book Show. If you are looking for an easy, creative project, this one is super fun.

40. 12 Simple Ways to Make Your Yoga Classes More Trauma Informed.

41. Killing Of Young Woman In Nepal Spotlights Travel Safety.

42. Wisdom from Saul Bellow, “Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.”

43. Wisdom from Carl Sagan, “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

44. 26 Photos That Every Perfectionist Will Find Pleasing.

45. Margaret Atwood: On Facing the Blank Page.

46. Man Recreates Photos Of His Late Wife With His 3-Year-Old Daughter 3 Years After The Accident. All the feels…

47. Creative Work on Allowing Myself.

48. 11 easy ways to reduce your plastic waste today on Tree Hugger. I’m doing most of this already, but what’s really got me excited from this post is the picture of the decorated tiffins. I want! Indian Tiffin has decorated ones, and Happy Tiffin has a really great selection of undecorated ones, all different sizes and shapes.

Something Good

pumpkinSo great to be partnering with Wanderlust to share this list with a larger audience.

1. The homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews instead of begging. “You don’t have to be rich to save the world,” Philani Dladla, The Pavement Bookworm. The foundation he started is really cool.

2. Students protesting Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home”: How clinging to “Christian moral beliefs” can end an education before it even begins on Salon. “Liking is not learning, of course — and learning is not always comfortable.” And in related news, Alison Bechdel Would Like You to Call It the “Bechdel-Wallace Test,” ThankYouVeryMuch.

3. A Question of Prosperity from Meghan Genge in which she considers what it means to feel prosperous.

4. Open Letter to Native College Students.

5. It’s Not Just ODU Students Putting Up Offensive Signs About Freshman Girls. Not something good so much as something you should know about. I wonder what the parents of these young men think about this? What do their mothers think?

6. Why America Needs a Slavery Museum. I’m still surprised there is currently only one.

7. Modern ‘train-nomad’ chooses to live on trains instead of renting. In related news, I secretly lived in my office for 500 days.

8. Hurricane Katrina happened ten years ago. It’s just as devastating ten years out. These Are The Forgotten Images Of Hurricane Katrina, and The 85 Most Powerful Hurricane Katrina Images, and This American Life 565: Lower 9 + 10, and 10 Years After Katrina.

9. 10 Successful Entrepreneurs on the Worst Advice They Ever Received.

10. 100 Cameras Were Given To Homeless In London And The Result Left Everyone Speechless.

11. 30 Reasons Why I Write by Jon Westenberg. Things like, “There’s no despair that can’t be held at bay with words,” and “My writing is my own roadmap – it helps me find my way.”

12. why dinner was late last night from SouleMama. It’s a beautiful reason.

13. I’m Sorry I Didn’t Respond to Your Email, My Husband Coughed to Death Two Years Ago.

14. The Greatest Commencement Addresses of All Time on Brain Pickings. I know it’s not the right season for this as most students are just going back to school not graduating, but if you want some serious inspiration this is the place.

15. Wisdom from Jessica Patterson,

If you want to know real freedom, you must learn forgiveness. That doesn’t mean collapsing boundaries or giving up or giving in. It doesn’t mean going back. It doesn’t mean absolution or sweeping things under the rug. It means you let go of grasping–and that which has a grip on you. It means reclaiming your own inner sanctuary and ushering out what’s crowding your space. Let go of the need to be right, to be in control, to be understood, to be certain. Let go of what has distracted you from the grace of each moment–your birthright, your presence.

16. No, I Am Not Crowdfunding This Baby (an open letter to a worried fan) by Amanda Palmer, a beautiful contemplation of the tenderness and terror of being a mother and an artist.

17. Boy, 13, Keeps Father Alive After He’s Badly Hurt by Falling Boulder. May we all have someone like this to help when we need it.

18. Brave Girl University is open for enrollment. It is “a one-stop gathering place for learning, growing and becoming, through hundreds of classes taught by dedicated teachers who offer soulful ways to make life better, happier and more authentic for every woman. From painting to gardening to meditation to relationships and much more. . . access it ALL for just $24.95 per month.” I’ve taken classes with many of these teachers, and am amazed by what a good deal this is.

19. Good stuff from Dances with Fat: What If I’m Not Happy With My Weight, and George Takei and Why I Can’t Take a Joke, and Telling Truth to Power.

20. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club,

If something isn’t getting you closer to your heart’s most precious goals, if it isn’t making your most important relationships stronger and more valued, if it is not helping you grow and making your heart sing, maybe it’s time to think about letting it go.

If you will listen very very very closely, you will know for sure what to hold on to…and what to let go…and where to spend your precious minutes and energies.

And this,

You know SO much more than you think you know. Each of us was born with a lovely inner compass…it’s there to guide us. We must tune out almost every voice around us to be able to focus on what this inner voice tells us is true for our own lives.

Please don’t give any heed at all to the useless opinions of others, beautiful friend. Act for yourself. Face your own truths…then act on your own truths. Plug your ears when there are annoying, loud, negative voices that have no business giving you opinions about your own life. Turn off the confusing lies, and be brave enough to tune in to that inner voice that speaks your truth. Those feelings in your gut are your deepest wisdom, and you will recognize the voice of truth by the warm and peaceful feelings it brings.

21. 7 Simple Ways to Soothe Your Soul from Be More With Less. “Sometimes your soul needs time to just hang out with your heart, and your truth.”

22. I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon. This Is My Story.

23. The Monk Manifesto: Seven Principles for Living with Deep Intention. I had never heard of this before Erica Staab posted about it on her blog. It is “a public expression of your commitment to live a compassionate, contemplative, and creative life.” I think if one were to live according to this manifesto, they would be ridiculously happy, completely content. Or maybe that’s just me.

24. 85 Percent of What We Worry About Never Happens. I heard once that “worrying is like praying for what we don’t want to happen.” This article gives yet another reason why worry is wasted.

25. Good stuff from Austin Kleon’s newsletter: I’ve Spent A Lifetime Building a Mighty Network. Here Are My Secrets., and Marshall McLuhan on writing, and The Steal Like An Artist Journal (I want).

26. Sarah Silverman just life-coached everyone who’s felt undeserving. Such a cool perspective. (video)

27. Write Anyway: October, a workshop with Janelle Hanchett. Sometime I really want to do one of these.

28. Good stuff Alexandra Franzen shared in her newsletter: The “Grocery List” Method To Writing Your Bio. (So Easy. For Real.), and Ask Alex & Ellen: I got rejected and now I want to give up. How can I get motivated again?, and What Does The World Need More Of In Order To Heal?, and a podcast interview Alexandra Franzen on Changing with Grace and How To Be More Intentional With Your Time.

29. Shared on Positively Present Picks: Living Your Dreams Will Piss People Off. Do It Anyway., and this quote from Oprah Winfrey, “I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.”

30. Good stuff from Susannah’s Something for the Weekend list: The unconscious quality of judgment. And Mötley Crüe, and Annapurna Woman Susannah Conway, (this whole interview series is really great), The Pep Talk Generator, and Things That Will Happen If I Don’t Take My Phone Out Right Now, and Raise Your Hand Say Yes with Lisa Congdon on Passion Projects.

31. Wisdom from Aimée Reed, by way of The Pep Talk Generator mentioned above,

“Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing” — Cormac McCarthy. We all have to do things we don’t like in pursuit of our goals and dreams. However, if you are doing something that doesn’t directly correlate to you achieving them, then stop. Immediately. In reality, we have but a minute on this earth. Work, live, take chances, love, eat, argue, make mistakes, fight, and screw like you have 30 seconds left on the stopwatch.

32. Where Children Sleep, a photo series from James Mollison, “stories of diverse children around the world, told through portraits and pictures of their bedrooms.”

33. When Doing Yoga by Yourself from Bad Yogi.

34. 8 Things I Learned from 10 Months Unplugged on Elephant Journal.

35. Veruca Salt has a new album coming out.

36. Fundraising page for one of my favorite bears who’ll be doing the Out of the Darkness Walk, raising money for The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

37. Brene Brown on embracing failure, setting boundaries and living through grief: “It is an act of compassion to love yourself.”

38. 4 Questions that Will Change Your Attitude (When You Can’t Change Anything Else) from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

39. On The Subject Of Your Discouragement on Terrible Minds.

40. Viral Photo Of Syrian Refugee Prompts Strangers To Give Him ‘A New Life.’