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

Lory State Park, image by Eric

1. Fuck That! A Manifesto from Gala Darling.

2. More Consensus on Coffee’s Benefits Than You Might Think.

3. How not to talk to people with an eating disorder.

4. A Tiny Hamster And A Hedgehog Had A Tiny Tiki Party Because The Internet Is Amazing.

5. Nepal Earthquake Relief Coalition.

6. A Variety of Unprocessed Foods Cut into Uncannily Precise 2.5cm Cubes by Lernert & Sander.

7. Release Tension in the Psoas. “Our yoga practice is an opportunity to undo this chronic tension, and establish a deep and abiding sense of harmony in the body and mind.”

8. The Secret Life of a Scorpio on Elephant Journal.

9. 23 Brilliant Life Lessons From Anthony Bourdain.

10. Rats try to rescue others in distress, suggesting they feel empathy.

11. How to Get Rid of Clutter You Care About from Be More with Less.

12. In the Garden, May 14 on SouleMama.

13. How to Get Your Spouse on Board for Your Career Change from Laura Simms.

14. 3 Ways You’re Making Your Life Harder Than It Has To Be on Marc and Angel Hack Life.

15. the stylists: little nicki on SF Girl by Bay.

16. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club, two different messages, both ones I needed to hear,

Dear Spread-Too-Thin Girl….

Is it time to pare your life down to the handful of things that mean the most to you, and let the rest go so that you can give the very best of yourself to the very best things…instead of being spread in a too-thin layer all over the place?

Your heart knows when it’s time…and you will have the strength to do it.

And best of all…you will see enormous changes happen in your life when you let the unimportant things go and embrace the things that quietly sustain you and bring you joy.

It may not look like the most glamorous life….but it is one filled with joy, peace and harmony….one where laughter is a welcome and frequent companion…one where worries are few…where long meaningful conversations are many…..one that is waiting for you when you are ready to take the steps to get there.

You can do amazing things with the simplest things. You can have so little and be so happy. You can take small amounts of time and perform life-changing acts.

Is it time to simplify?

Simplify today…..one little thing at time. You can do it.

AND

Dear Wise Girl,

Having a rough day? Stop and take a breath, and remember it’s important to stick to the facts, because we often make things up in our heads that get us into a tizzy that is hard to get out of. Fears are mean little fabulists.

Think about everything you have feared in your life, or even for the last 30 days. Think about what you have feared for the last 24 hours, in fact. Think about the stories that you made up in your head about those fierce fears, about all of the terrible and scary and devastating things that surrounded those fears, about how if those things happened, they would surely ruin your life.

Now think about whether or not ANY of those things came to pass, and whether they really did devastate your life. Sure, some yucky things actually DO happen, but a large majority of our fears are stories that we make up in our heads that never ever happen. Yet we waste SO MUCH TIME on them. Aren’t we silly creatures?

So stick to the facts. And if the facts are harsh and look like they might yield some difficult consequences, think about the WORST thing that could possibly happen, and then ask yourself if you could live through it and be okay. See? YOU CAN! And YOU WILL!!

Because you are a brave, brave girl.

17. On Unplugging from Work & Embracing Adventure from Rowdy Kittens.

18. Dear Writers: None Of Us Know What The Fuck We’re Doing on Terrible Minds. tl;dr:

The Five Constants:
1. Write A Lot (And To Completion)
2. Read A Lot (And Read Critically When You Do)
3. Think About Writing And Storytelling
4. Talk To Writers
5. Go Live A Life

19. A Guy Secretly Filmed His Mom For A Year To Help Her Find A Boyfriend.

20. Practicing Non-Judgment on Zen Habits.

21. Good stuff from Austin Kleon’s newsletter: Dear universe (form letter), and Karr to Syracuse grads: Don’t compare your twisted-up insides to others’ blow-dried outsides and a video of the same speech, and In a Mother’s Library, Bound in Spirit and in Print.

22. Video: 100 years of Aging a Soon-to-be Married Couple.

23. Man Cleans Up Entire River On His Way To Work.

24. The Last Day of Her Life, “When Sandy Bem found out she had Alzheimer’s, she resolved that before the disease stole her mind, she would kill herself. The question was, when?”

25. At the Coffeehouse by Jeff Oaks.

26. Melissa McCarthy has powerful words for image-obsessed Hollywood.

27. The Heart and the Bottle: A Tender Illustrated Fable of What Happens When We Deny Our Difficult Emotions on Brain Pickings.

1. Good stuff on Medium: Why Starting a “Blog” is a Terrible Idea, and When you work for yourself: stop doing shit you don’t like, and Starbucks Wants To Talk To You About Race, and Lighten Up.

2. Good stuff from Dances with Fat: If Not Weight Loss, Then What? and Willful Suspension of Disbelief.

3. Things That Make Me Happy on A Design So Vast.

4. Don’t Create Content. Move People. from Jonathan Fields.

5. Truthbomb from Danielle LaPorte: “Think of suffering as self-compassion school.”

6. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been kind of obsessed with any conversation around race and racism lately. Here are some thought provoking articles on the subject, if you are also interested: After an Uneasy Start, Finding Common Ground to Discuss Race Relations at Work, and 10 things black people fear that white people simply don’t, and Why Kimmy Schmidt’s Native Subplot is Great: A Native Fan’s Opinion, and Being White Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry: How the Oklahoma frat scandal exposes a racial double standard, and Portland gentrification video: ‘This is painful, but we can do something,’ and this video,

7. Good stuff about writing from Terrible Minds: The Flipside Of My Writing Tirade, and In Which I Emit A Lot Of Grr-Talk About Your Writing Career, and Writing Is A Profane, Irrational, Imperfect Act.

8. I’m also kind of obsessed with the conversation around fattism, fat shaming, Health at Every Size, and such. Here are some good articles on the topic, if you are also interested: the weight of this body, and Virgie Tovar on eradicating diet culture, the joy of moving your body, and Babecamp 2015, and Grieving the Loss of Your Body Fantasy, and What Happens If We Let Fat People Be Happy?

9. Just One Man Remains in Fukushima Radiation Zone – He’s Feeding All the Animals Left Behind.

10. The Girl’s Girl from Brittany, Herself.

11. 40 Guilty Cats Who Deserve To Be Shamed Publicly, but probably don’t care because, well, they are cats.

12. Meg Worden, podcast goddess: Ask the Aunties Episode 1: ‘I am a 35 year old virgin’ and Raise your Hand Say Yes with Meg Worden.

13. If Vegans Said Things Meat Eaters Say.

14. StoryCorps Wins The TED Prize And Builds An App That Lets Anyone Record An Interview On Their Phone.

15. Nurse helps sexual assault survivors heal, move on.

16. Sex Tips That Don’t Suck, a poem performed.

17. Tweet, Memory, Dani Shapiro remembering Lisa Bonechek Adams.

18. Leon Bridges, such a beautiful voice. I can’t wait for his full album. The style of what I’ve heard so far reminds me of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black.

19. A Group Of People Read The Last Texts From Their Exes And It’s Hilarious.

20. The Pitfalls of Pursuing Your Purpose by Adreanna Limbach.

21. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: On Awakening Through Race, Sexuality, and Gender, and Dig into 3 recipes from vegan chef Bryant Terry.

22. Side-By-Side Photos Of What Rich And Poor Eat Reveal ‘Glaring Disparities’ Worldwide.

23. The difference between commitment and technique from Seth Godin.

24. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Even after many years, many of us continue to practice harshly. We practice with guilt, as if we’re going to be excommunicated if we don’t do it right. We practice so we won’t be ashamed of ourselves and with fear that someone will discover what a “bad” meditator we really are. The old joke is that a Buddhist is someone who is either meditating or feeling guilty about not meditating. There’s not much joy in that.

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It’s such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we’re doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We’re letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint.

25. From Brave Girls Club:

Just like every amazing brave girl, your mind and heart are filled with lots and lots of ideas and dreams. Sometimes that puts us into a panic because we feel like we have to do it all right now, or that we will run out of time, or like the window of opportunity will close.

Please remember, friend, that there is a season for everything. You may find that when you ask your heart of hearts, that you can only focus on one big thing at a time if you are to do it in the beautiful, soulful way that you love to do things…and that other things may have to wait for now. You may find that you can juggle two or three special things, but that you will have to let some others things go to be able to make that happen. What you will most likely NOT find if you are very very soulfully honest with yourself and if you listen very very closely, is that you cannot do EVERYTHING you want to do at once…because sacred things will suffer…most especially YOU.

So please give yourself permission to put some things on a different timetable so that you can give the best of yourself to the things that are very most important in THIS season of your life. It does not make you weak or powerless when you let things go… On the contrary it shows your strength and commitment to all that is best for your own precious life.

26. Introducing April LOVE, 2015!, another great daily photo challenge from Susannah Conway.

27. Good stuff on Create as Folk: Contributor Welcome: Caren Baginski for Workday Wellness and Ever Feel Like a Nobody?

28. The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People: INFOGRAPHIC.

29. Surrealist Sculptures by Ellen Jewett Merge Plant and Animal Life.

30. Now that’s what I call an *acceptance* speech. Amazing job, Kerry Washington.