1. Building a Mindful New Year Together, a FREE program in which “writers and Buddhist teachers Susan Piver and Lodro Rinzler have invited a collection of accomplished dharma teachers to guide you through the end of one year and into another with mindfulness and awareness, focused on the six priorities that will benefit you most as you lay the ground for what is to come.”
2. Realistic Slogans for Diet Companies from Dances with Fat.
3. What Nourishes You? from Ishita Gupta.
4. Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly from Laurie Wagner.
5. Wisdom from Tulku Thondup,
If we are serious about fostering world peace, we must first understand, generate, and experience real peace in our own mental stream. Awareness of peace is the foundation and goal of healing ourselves and the world. If our mind, or consciousness, is enjoying the awareness of peace, our everyday life will turn into a life of peace. Whatever we say will resound as the words of peace. Whatever we do will manifest as the expression of peace. Our mere presence will make the hearts of many blossom with happiness and harmony. Then we become one of the true peaceful members of society and a source inspiring others to true peace, too. Our every word and smile will send a genuine message of peace to others, and a true cycle of world peace and joy could be set in motion. So the inspiration of true world peace must take birth in our own heart.
6. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club, “We cannot be brave without being afraid.” Also this, “After we have done all that we can, sometimes it is time to just let something rest…and sometimes that even means to let it go for good.”
7. Truthbomb #691 from Danielle LaPorte, “Get clear on why you’re chasing what you’re chasing.”
8. Questions for Writers on A Design So Vast.
9. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,
When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell. In fact, that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable. Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly.
The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last—that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security. From this point of view, the only time we ever know what’s really going on is when the rug’s been pulled out and we can’t find anywhere to land. We use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep. Right now—in the very instant of groundlessness—is the seed of taking care of those who need our care and of discovering our goodness.
10. this was a good week: introducing the thrive a/v journaling club! from Chookooloonks.
11. Courting the Monster In Your Head (and Under Your Bed), from Jonathan Fields,
“a beautiful example of what can happen when you commit to a process of discovery and openness and vulnerability. When you allow all the assumptions about what you should be to fall away and step into what you are. When you’re willing to share your voice with the world, hold yourself out to be on the one hand, judged, but on the other, embraced and lifted.”
12. A Holiday Joy Up Gift of Days from Hannah Marcotti.
13. Burning through the calories: where the carbs fit for weight management from Drop It and Eat.
14. Practicing Slowness & Being Present on Zen Habits.
15. Daily from Seth Godin.
16. A year in photos: the first half from Susannah Conway. So beautiful.
17. Talking Funny, Jerry Seinfeld, Ricky Gervais, Louis CK and Chris Rock on their creative processes, (shared by Susannah on her Something for the Weekend list).
18. This quote, shared by Austin Kleon,
The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance. ~Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
19. Becoming Real, (shared on Positively Present Picks).
20. Dear Sugar, Episode 1: Meet The Sugars.
21. Raise your hand. Say yes. with Susannah Conway, just one brilliant episode of Tiffany Han’s amazing podcast.
22. Photographer Spends 20 Years Documenting How We All Dress Exactly Alike on Colossal.
23. How to Eat for Holiday Sanity on Eat to Love.
24. The Crossroads of Should and Must on Medium.
25. Wisdom from Hiro Boga,
The central paradox of our being is that we are both boundaried and boundless. Wholeness embraces the entire spectrum of our being, but most of us are more comfortable with one aspect of our selves than with the other.
If you love hanging out in boundlessness, you may find it hard to stay present, get things done or create sustainable success in your everyday life. If you hang out primarily in your boundaried self, your challenge might be a pervasive longing, the emptiness of a heart denied.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 