This post started as a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.
1. A friend’s healthy new baby. The story of her labor and his delivery–a baby too big to get out on his own–makes me think about how many mothers and babies have died in childbirth, how if this friend had lived in a different time or place, she might have been one of those women, he might have been one of those babies. It makes me grateful for the help and care she received.
2. Physical therapy for Dexter. Talk about luck–we live in a culture where our pets get better healthcare than many people in the world, people who either can’t afford it or simply don’t have access. I am so grateful I can provide that for him, want the same for all of us, people and animals. He’s getting much better, was cleared this week to go on a few short hikes.
3. Avocados. Yes, I am still obsessed with them. I might have a problem. I am finding that I like them so much better than cheese on a sandwich. My current favorite sandwich is organic multigrain bread, Nayonaise, honey mustard, organic turkey breast, avocado and spinach, with a few organic potato chips for a little bit of crunch.
4. Spring. It really is coming, (here?). I hadn’t realized how much I missed the sun, the warmth, the song of the birds, the green and the blossom.
5. The chance to do good work, paid and otherwise. Yesterday at my paid work, I sent an inquiry to Brene’ Brown’s management to get some numbers so we can write a proposal, attempt to get the funding to have her invited to give a talk at CSU. I signed it, “I look forward to hearing from you.” What I meant was “OMG, I am so excited, squeeeeee, *please please please let this work*.” And this week I sent out a submission for publication, my first in a long time.
Bonus Joy: Another week with Dexter. He teaches me to let go, to surrender and be here now, to open up to the joy and beauty in this moment.
Sometimes we use food and our weight as a way to be left alone. Since many of us believe that, regardless of what we get paid to do, our real job is to on call for people who need us, we leave ourselves with a way to get what we need and want: food. But when you say yes when you mean no, you abandon yourself. And when you say no when you mean no, you signal to yourself that it is safe here, inside your body. Safe here, where you live and are and breathe. You don’t have to run away. You don’t have to lie.
Saying no is a way of being tender with yourself and honest with the people around you. And when you say no with your voice, you will no longer need to say it with your body weight. And when you say no to what you don’t want, you have space to say yes to what you do.
And this one:
Right now, in this very second, ask yourself if what you are doing, what you are thinking and how you are acting brings you closer to yourself or farther away. Does it open your heart or does it close your heart? You have a choice. Break the trance. Come back to kindness.
And this one too:
Sometimes happiness is as difficult to accept as sadness or loneliness. Sometimes, we eat because we don’t know what to do with happiness or joy. We think we’re not allowed. We think we will get “too big for our britches.” We become superstitious. If we talk about it, people won’t like it. If we tell someone, they might be threatened and go away. We hold onto our sadness because we think that that is what connects us with other people–that if we feel terrible about ourselves, we will get help, but if we feel as if we are occupying our own lives, if we feel powerful, we will lose. In this way, we keep ourselves psychologically small. We keep ourselves wounded and afraid of our own magnificence. But it’s when you are aware of, and own, the hugeness of your heart, your being, your love that you are most connected to other people–which then allows them to connect to their own power, their own love. It begins with you.
10. Ben’s Friday Dance Party. I love this guy. He makes me smile. But I also watch this video and wonder if you were around him all the time, would it get annoying? Or would your face and stomach hurt from smiling so much and laughing so hard?
16. Why We Write: Mary Karr on the Magnetism and Madness of the Written Word on Brain Pickings. Equally depressing, refreshingly honest, and oddly comforting is this, “I still don’t support myself as a writer. I support myself as a college professor. I couldn’t pay my mortgage on the revenue from my books. The myth is that you make a lot of money when you publish a book. Unless you write a blockbuster, that’s pretty much untrue. Starting when I was five, I always identified as a writer. It had nothing to do with income.” I wish it weren’t true, and yet if it is, wouldn’t it just be better to surrender?
22. Yo La Tengo – “I’ll Be Around” video, a simple but magically complex video.
23. Danny and Annie, a sweet, sad love story, with an ending like so many others.
24. 10 Things Parents Should Never, Ever Do on BlogHer. I’m never sure if these are funny to me because I don’t have kids, or if they’d be that much funnier if I did.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 