Brave Girls Club | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

Horsetooth Reservoir, image by Eric

1. Wisdom from Saint Thomas, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” (Thanks to Gemma Stone for sharing).

2. Good stuff on Upworthy: A Baby Survives A Situation That Could Have Killed Any Of Us. Now They Call Him ‘Miracle Baby.’ and This Kid’s Scary Personification Of Depression Gives Me Chills.

3. Good stuff from Buzzfeed: This Artist Turns Her 2-Year-Old’s Doodles Into Gorgeous Paintings, and 21 Women Remember Their First Periods…For Better Or For Worse, and If Andy Dwyer Quotes Were Motivational Posters, and If Nick Miller Quotes Were Motivational Posters.

4. Wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert on Facebook: Love your neighbor and How not to be overwhelmed.

5. 24 Signs That Life is Amazingly Awesome (Even When It Doesn’t Feel That Way). (Thanks for sharing, Sandi).

6. Anne Lamott on Facebook, “Life or life: This strange situation we find ourselves in, with no clear answers or meaning — well, you know, I mean besides love, or Love; taking care of the poor; and being amazed by beauty.”

7. The 7 Lies That Keep Us From Success from Jonathan Fields.

8. One of my favorite quotes, from Thich Nhat Hanh: “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”

9. 23 ways to relax when you’re stressed from Positively Present.

10. Wisdom from Hafiz:

Ever since happiness heard your name,
it has been running through the streets
trying to find you.

11. More wisdom from Thich Nhat Hanh:

Our practice is to find our true home. When we breathe, we breathe in such a way that we can find our true home. When we make a step, we make a step in such a way that we touch our true home with our feet.

12. Good stuff on Bored Panda: 17 Of The Most Unusual Beaches Around The World, and Mesmerizing Paper Art Made From Strips Of Colored Paper by Yulia Brodskaya, and These People Turned Log Piling Into An Art Form.

13. Vegetarian Sweet Potato Chili recipe.

14. Anahata Katkin’s Flickr Photostream.

15. The Creamy Kung Foo of Writing True Stories from Laurie Wagner.

16. Why I Think This World Should End from Prince Ea.

16. New Backlit Paper Sculptures by Hari & Deepti on Colossal.

17. Then and now photos: Colorado flood recovery one year later from Colorado Public Radio.

18. You Cannot Hate Yourself Into Change from Jo Anna Rothman.

19. Wisdom from the poet Stonehouse:

I meditate alone in the quiet and dark
where nothing comes to mind
I sweep the steps when the west wind is done
I make a path for the moonlight

20. 5 Questions to Instantly Transform Your Family Relationships from MindValley Academy.

21. Accepting Ourselves…and our true delights from Julia Cameron.

22. 7 Steps to Living a Bill Murray Life, by Bill Murray.

23. The Horrible Awkwardness and Angst of Being a Beginner: In Aikido or at Anything on Huffington Post.

24. Learning How to Draw a Mandala from Jamie Ridler.

25. Good stuff from Be More with Less: 10 Strategies for Absolute Clarity and Identify Your Real Treasures and Finally Let Go.

26. Navigate Your Life: Justine Musk from Jennifer Louden.

27. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

In the morning when you wake up, reflect on the day ahead and aspire to use it to keep a wide-open heart and mind. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, think over what you’ve done. If you fulfilled your aspiration, even once, rejoice in that. If you went against your aspiration, rejoice that you are able to see what you did and are no longer living in ignorance. This way you will be inspired to go forward with increasing clarity, confidence, and compassion.

28. Wisdom from Natalie Goldberg:

[A practice] is something you choose to do on a regular basis with no vision of an outcome; the aim is not improvement, not getting somewhere. You do it because you do it…you have an opportunity to meet your own mind, to examine what it does, its plays and shenanigans.

29. Wisdom from Isabel Foxen Duke:

…binge-eating is ALWAYS the result of restriction, and/or judgement of our food choices, and is there anything that triggers you into these feelings and behaviors more than wishing your body was different than it is?

30. Words for the Day :: No. 40 from Lisa Congdon.

31. Mortality as Muse.

32. If I Knew The Way, I Would Take You Home from Rebelle Society.

33. Louis C.K. Exposes My Stupid Brain on McSweeney’s.

34. Shake it off, the song that won’t get out of my head, has inspired some pretty cute tributes.

35. Elizabeth Gilbert Shares Her “Really Weird” Advice About Following Your Passion on Huffington Post.

36. Hey White People: A Kinda Awkward Note to America by #Ferguson Kids.

36. The #1 Secret on How To Engage With a Narcissist on Huffington Post.

37. From Brave Girls Club:

Dear Insightful Girl,

You already know the answers to the questions that are eating away at you. You just have to trust yourself enough to really listen and be brave with your decisions.

You know oh-so-much-more than you give yourself credit for. You have a good heart and powerful intuition and you really do know the right way to go, that doesn’t mean it’s always the easiest way to go…but the easiest path never was the most fruitful path, and you are one of the courageous souls who seeks the best fruit.

Trust your gut. It has never led you astray. You can do it — you are a Brave Girl. And you are so loved.

38. Women’s greatest threat isn’t misogyny, it’s counting calories on the Washington Post.

39. A Photographer’s Moving Tribute to the Pine Ridge Reservation on Slate.

1. Yoga, While Exploding in Popularity, is Nearly Dead. A conversation between Waylon Lewis and Amy Ippoliti on Elephant Journal.

2. Good stuff on Bored Panda: Beautiful Tiny Animals Embroidered By Chloe Giordano and Japanese Artist Creates Fun Miniature Dioramas Every Day For 4 Years and 28 Magical Paths Begging To Be Walked.

3. Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt from Momastery. This is so good.

4. Good stuff from Huffington Post: 16 Beautiful Life Lessons From The Pen Of A Children’s Book Illustrator, and Meditation Isn’t Enough: A Buddhist Perspective on Suicide, and Your Body Is Not Your Masterpiece.

5. Vegan Avocado Chocolate Mousse recipe from Food Matters.

6. How & Why To Know Home and Conditions of Enoughness or the Art of Building Your Truer Life from Jennifer Louden.

7. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Sit quietly for a few minutes and become mindful of your breath as it goes in and out. Then contemplate what you do when you’re unhappy or dissatisfied and want to feel better. Even make a list if you want to. Then ask yourself: Does it work? Has it ever worked? Does it soothe the pain? Does it escalate the pain? If you’re really honest, you’ll come up with some pretty interesting observations.

8. Wisdom from Mara Glatzel,

Trust is built by: speaking to yourself kindly, giving yourself the space to move in your own right timing, following through with the promises that you make yourself – starting again whenever you notice yourself breaking your own trust.

Trust is destroyed by: lying to yourself, speaking to yourself in a harsh and cruel manner, putting the needs of others ahead of your own, and forcing yourself to live in a way that is out of sync with your own values.

9. Recipe for Falling in Love, a beautiful poem from Julia on Painted Path.

10. Super Love Tees. *swoon*

11. Some important responses to recent events: Choose Courage from Brene’ Brown, and Seek pinpricks of light by Sherry Richert Belul, and Affected by Karen at Chookooloonks.

12. Creative Living with Jamie: Rachael Maddox.

13. ten books that could deepen how you live and books for deepening how you live, heal, create & love from Gemma Stone.

14. 6 Reasons You Should Stop Obsessing Over Alignment in Yoga Class from Yoganonymous.

15. Truthbomb from Danielle LaPorte, “Settling for crumbs doesn’t keep you fed – it keeps you starving.”

16. Note from the Universe,

Just look to those who already possess as you wish to possess or who have already achieved as you wish to achieve, Jill, and ask yourself whether or not they have some special gift that you don’t have? If they have more angels than you? If they’re any more loved than you are now loved? If they have suffered more, worked harder, or waited longer than you? If I would permit them to be “luckier” or have it easier than you? And you will see, after careful consideration, that their success depended upon none of these things. It arrived simply because they expected it to arrive, and then lived their lives accordingly.

17. what freedom is (and isn’t) from Tiffany Han.

18. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club,

It is SO GOOD to do GOOD things, so good! It is so good to make things happen and to help others and to cross things off of our lists and to seek out more of everything that is good.

There is a time to stop and rest, however. Rest is good. Rest is one of the very good things in life to do. Our bodies need rest, our minds need rest, our spirits need rest, our relationships need for us to be rested. Our jobs need for us to be rested. The GOOD GOOD things in the world that we do need a rested BEST of us.

Rest does not need to hold hands with guilt. We do not have to pay for rest when the rest is over. Rest is an investment and makes everything we do better, more valuable and more meaningful. WE MUST REST. Please, dear friend, let yourself rest. Rest physically by going to bed. Rest emotionally by letting go of expectations. Rest spiritually by turning over your worries, problems and anger.

In your quest for all that is good and true, decide TODAY that rest is one of the best and truest of all things. Our bodies were designed to rest. We are being true to who we are when we take the time to truly truly rest. Hear it, sweetheart?

You are so loved. Now get some rest…

19. Shared on Karen’s This Was a Good Week list, Maude White Brave Bird Paperwork. The shadows are almost as amazing as the art.

20. Wisdom from Rumi,

I have been a seeker and I still am,
but I stopped asking the books and the stars.
I started listening to the teachings of my soul.

21. 25 Things to Remember When Life Gets Rough from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

22. Things Girls Do That’d Be Creepy If A Guy Did Them from BuzzFeed Video. The final one, “casual wear,” made me laugh, made Eric laugh so hard it bent him over.