Category Archives: Cigdem Kobu

Something Good

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0. It’s Margaret Atwood‘s birthday today. She’s one of my favorite authors. Why “0” instead of “1”? I am mentioning it as a way to sneak in that it’s also MY birthday today — Hello, 46! Another birthday, and sharing it with one of my favorites is something good for me.

1. Question #11, Courtney Putnam’s beautiful answer to my questions about grief.

2. Wisdom from Hafiz, “The place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.”

3. “A Writer Writes.” Tips for Living an Authentic Life. from Elephant Journal.

4. Good stuff from Be More With Less, One Little Simple Step and Seek out the Joy, (p.s. the “open-hearted Jill” she refers to in this post is ME!). Also from Courtney Carver, but on Medium, Plan to Be Surprised.

5. Good stuff from Seth Godin, Not a gift and Sure, but he’s our bully and Bullying is theft.

6. Wisdom from from David Whyte,

Why is it so difficult to take that first, necessary, close-in, courageous step to reclaiming our happiness in life? Perhaps, because taking that step leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, often rehearsing the old story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us that do not wish to participate or have nothing now to offer are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma, and where the last fight occurs, a rear guard disbelief that this new, less complicated self, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead. It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer the story to be more complicated, our identities clouded by fear and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.

7. How animal adoption & rescue has transformed my life from Kris Carr. I have been loving following Buddy’s story, and Kris’s post here is further proof that when you rescue a dog, they rescue you right back.

8. Everyone’s Talking About What This Shy Photographer Did. When You See This, You’ll Understand Why on Viral Nova.

9. When fat things happen to good people. On being thin, fat, and your false assumptions. from Drop it and Eat.

10. Your Most Precious Thing. Shaking up your attachments. from Danielle LaPorte.

11. My adventures into healthy cooking from Kelly Rae Roberts. I like the idea of cooking a week’s worth of essentials so that when you are hungry, you can just eat, however I am one of those people who worries about eating something that’s been in the fridge for longer than 2-3 days. I need to ask Kelly Rae how she handles that.

12. morning thoughts on Doorways Traveler.

13. Bodies are NOT a Problem (Despite Some Yoga Pants’ Attempts to Make Us Think Otherwise) from Curvy Yoga. Anna also shared this great quote on Facebook from Sharon Salzberg,

As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life — delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay — I hold this question as a guiding light: “What do I really need right now to be happy?” What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way.

14. 420 Square Feet Apartment Miracle! I don’t plan on going this small, (our house is 1088), but there are some really good ideas in this space.

15. Wisdom from Phillip Moffitt,

It’s possible to transform what has been a hindrance in your life into a teacher of the heart. “Transform” does not mean to fix or make go away whatever trauma and scars you may be carrying from childhood; instead, you slowly develop a new relationship with your difficulty, such that it is no longer a controlling factor in your life. What may seem like an intractable wound may even become a point of inspiration and deep understanding for you.

16. From Your Inner Pilot Light,

Somewhere inside of you lies a healer. Regardless of what’s printed on your business card, you were put on this earth to help others, to love others, to make this world a better place. If you’re not yet sure how you might use your healing superpowers in service to the world, that’s probably a sign. You and I aren’t close enough yet. Will you be my BFF?

17. How To Help Typhoon Haiyan Survivors on Huffington Post and Avoiding despair when disaster hits: aid, advocacy, action. from Marianne Elliott. I always am looking to ease suffering, and in some cases choosing exactly how can feel overwhelming. I was thankful to have this help and thought you might be too.

18. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön, “In any encounter, we have a choice: we can strengthen our resentment or our understanding and empathy. We can widen the gap between ourselves and others or lessen it.”

19. Announcing the New Improved Jonathan Fields (Just Add Water)
 and Plan B from Jonathan Fields.

20. 11 Little Signs You’re Doing Just Fine from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

21. Self-Discipline in 5 Sentences on Zen Habits.

22. Welcome to Dinovember, on Medium. This is 14 kinds of awesome.

23. Wisdom from Kute Blackson,

It’s when you accept life as it is and as it isn’t that you bring yourself into the flow. When you no longer resist life then you can meet the moment powerfully.

And this,

When you acknowledge your deep intuition, and live in accord with your deepest truth, you become the truly powerful being that you are.

And this brainteaser,

Sometimes what you want is actually not what you REALLY want but what you think you want based on who you think you currently are.

And finally this,

The most powerful prayer is simply to SURRENDER. To give up what you think your goal and vision should look like, to give up your attachments to the form, and to open yourself to the highest good unfolding for all concerned.

24. Daily Rocks: your daily rock : be generous and your daily rock : just be.

25. Wisdom from Marianne Williamson,

The only way to gain power in a world that is moving too fast is to learn to slow down. And the only way to spread one’s influence wide is to learn how to go deep. The world we want for ourselves and our children will not emerge from electronic speed but rather from a spiritual stillness that takes root in our souls. Then, and only then, will we create a world that reflects the heart instead of shattering it.

26. Be Your Own Beloved Mentoring, what looks to be a fabulous offering from Vivienne McMaster.

27. Meet Ippo, The Adorable Zonkey Who is Half Zebra, Half Donkey on Bored Panda. Oh, the cuteness.

28. The Season of Kindness…to Yourself from Brittany Herself. I’m in. Are you?

29. This hilarious parody of Gravity set in IKEA is spot on.

30. Wisdom from Anne Lamott on Facebook.

31. Where the Divine Show Up (It’s not where you’d expect) from Ronna Detrick. I’m not gonna lie, this one is blowing my mind a little bit.

32. Trying to describe your delightful new project — and drawing a blank? Start here. from Alexandra Franzen.

33. Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Quinoa and Cranberries, a yummy looking recipe from Thug Kitchen.

34. Two good posts from 3x3x365, 11/13/13 and 11/15/13. Amy McCracken (in the third spot) is both one of my favorite people and one of my favorite writers, and Burg one of my favorite dogs.

35. A beautiful quote from Meade, “To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart, and to sing it to them when they have forgotten.”

36. Catch My Fall: The Healing from just Lara, who is anything but “just.”

37. I was so sad to learn DJ Cheb I Sabbah died. He made beautiful music. I bought his first album in 1999 and have loved him ever since, donated money to help pay for his cancer treatment last year, as he was a musician with no health insurance. NPR ran this piece on him after he passed, Remembering Cheb I Sabbah, DJ Who Built A New Musical World.

38. A heartbreaking post from Humans of New York.

39. Elizabeth Gilbert on Facebook, posting about something I know a lot about — canine therapy and amazement.

40. Just showing up from Christina Rosalie.

41. Dani Shapiro: Self-doubt is a writer’s best friend on Salon.

42. Winter Joy Retreat with Cigdem Kobu. This is the second year Cigdem has put together a program like this, (last year it was Reset. Revive. Restart.), and it’s looking like it’s going to be a yearly holiday tradition for me.

43. Wisdom Notes for a Well-Fed Holiday with Rachel Cole is becoming one of my other yearly traditions.

43. Dog tired! Adorable toddler and his ‘puppy brother’ Theo who nap together every day is stupid cute, (i.e. someone or something that is so attractive it disrupts your ability to intelligently process information while looking at it, something so unbelievably cute it makes you stupid). I am a sucker for black and tan dogs, also for naps with cute boys. Here’s her post about adopting Theo, Wishes Granted: Theo and Beau, and here’s where you can follow her on Instagram for all the cuteness.

44. Good stuff from Chookooloonks: #naphopomo 2013, day 16: redone office (and a giveaway)! (I love getting to see people’s workspaces, and this one is particularly cosy), and #naphopomo 2013, day 18: cutting back, shooting forward.

45. Wisdom from Nadia Bolz-Weber, “But being good has never set me free the way truth has.”

46. This is why I am doing too much: people I adore come up with fun stuff like this, Kickin’ It Old Skool Blog-a-thon.

47. Help Me Attend Earth Activist Training, another one of my cousins trying to do good things.

48. Dog Songs: Mary Oliver on What Dogs Teach Us About the Meaning of Our Human Lives on Brain Pickings. My favorite line from this book is “A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.”

Self-Compassion Saturday: Cigdem Kobu

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I first encountered Cigdem Kobu’s work by way of an amazing project she created in 2012, A Year With Myself. That fall, I did Reset. Revive. Restart., a collaboration between Cigdem and Sandi Amorim. I am excited in the years to come to take advantage of the support she offers women solopreneurs — she describes that work this way,

I help quiet-loving women solopreneurs build a unique online business with more ease and less stress so that they do their greatest work and earn a lot more doing what fulfills their hearts. I write, I teach, I design e-programs, build websites, connect people, and create peacefully supportive communities. And I teach other creative people (in plain English) how to do the same. I believe business is fun when it nourishes your heart first and that building a business is the best way for deep personal growth.

Everything Cigdem creates is infused with a particular tenderness and strength that is unique to her. She creates safe and supportive spaces where women are able to discover their own power, a fierce love energy that is so essentially feminine. So often, culture attempts to strip women of this power, to bind and restrict them, and Cigdem offers a way out, a “cease-fire,” freedom.

Cigdem is a writer, business advisor and teacher who pursues peaceful triumphs in life, work and art. She also runs the Progress Lounge, a peaceful business haven where she helps introverted women solopreneurs build a sustainable and joy-filled business that fits them like a glove. I am so happy to offer her perspective on self-compassion with you.

Jill4-cigdemkobu1. What does self-compassion mean, what is it? How would you describe or define it?

For me, self-compassion is keeping a caring, gentle eye on my most important needs and desires – big or small and inner or outer – and giving myself the permission to do more of what brings me ease and energy, and less of what drains me.

Jill1-cigdemkobu2. How did you learn self-compassion? Did you have a teacher, a guide, a path, a resource, a book, a moment of clarity or specific experience?

It’s been a long process. And it’s a work in progress. Along the way, my guides were people, books, experiences, journeys, and the lessons that come from recalling, untangling and understanding the past. My past, my family’s past and the past of the world we live in.

Other guides?

Perhaps, rediscovering and remembering over and over again that we’re all deeply connected and that compassion and self-compassion, and loving yourself and another or the Earth cannot be separated… Also, finding out that this nugget of truth is one that I must remind myself of day in day out.

Jill2-cigdemkobu3. How do you practice self-compassion, what does that experience look like for you?

(i) I focus on noticing.

I watch, I observe, and I lean into myself. Self-compassion cannot be thought apart from self-discovery and self-understanding. Everything I do whether related to personal or business growth is deeply connected with self-discovery and the deeper alignment that it makes possible. And for that, the first step for me has always been noticing.

(ii) I allow myself to spend as much quiet and alone time as I need to feel energized.

I’m a hard-core introvert, and if I don’t get my daily quiet and me-time, I can get really cranky – toward myself and others. So quiet solitude is what I MUST HAVE for self-compassion – first and foremost.

For me, and many introverted people, white space incites creativity, quiet is a source of energy, and solitude is rich with possibilities. I’ve learned to appreciate and safeguard all three and summon those qualities in every environment I craft for myself and my kind.

(iii) I encourage myself to say “no” when “yes” is not what my heart desires.

Saying “no” has always been one of the most difficult things for me. It took me very long time to learn to say “no” when I really don’t want to say “yes.” It’s still something I’m learning to get better at.

By nature and because of my upbringing, I hate conflicts and making people upset. Isn’t that true for so many of us women? So in my life, I’ve ended up saying “yes” to so many things even though my right answer was, in fact, a big “no.”

Now I’m a little better at saying no. But just a bit better 🙂

What I still have to learn is to say “no” the way my dear friend Tara Rodden Robinson says in The Reliability Manifesto: “When I speak my ‘no,’ I do so with love and courage. Therefore, I say ‘no,’ plainly, without squirming, apologizing, or making superfluous explanations.”

Jill3-cigdemkobu4. What do you still need to learn, to know, to understand? What is missing from your practice of self-compassion, what do you still struggle with?

I think today I’m a little better at self-compassion for my inner self. But I still have space to grow in the way I give my compassion to my body and care for my physical being. Honestly, I suck at it these days.

I used to be better at it in the past. I love my business so much that it doesn’t feel like work at all. But this also causes me to forget to take enough breaks, and I sometimes get caught up in doing more, more, more.

I do a lot of writing and creating in front of the computer. And when I don’t take enough time to rest and move, this quickly starts affecting my physical health.

So I have to keep reminding myself that it’s OK to slow down, and that it’s OK to take slower and smaller steps toward my destination. My natural rhythm rocks. All I have to do is notice and remember. And also, stand up and move.

Like you always say, this is also about “practice, which means showing up again and again with an open heart.” 🙂

Jill5-cigdemkobuI am so grateful to Cigdem, for these responses, but also for her honesty about her own experience and her support of women as they make their offering to the world. To find out more about Cigdem, to connect with her:

Next on Self-Compassion Saturday: Lisa Field-Elliot.

P.S. If you didn’t see the first post in this series, you might want to read Self-Compassion Saturday: The Beginning. Or make your way through all the posts tagged Self-Compassion Saturday.