Category Archives: Core Values

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: Some issues cannot be solved through abstinence. I offer up myself and my “life-rehab” as a specific example of this.  The difficulties I am currently working with are that I have been in a long term abusive relationship, with myself, and need to learn how to relate to myself differently, to heal that relationship.  Also, as I mentioned just the other day, I have a damaged and distorted relationship with food.  In both cases, I cannot simply abstain.  I can’t abstain from eating or relating to myself. I would die.

by Hugh MacLeod

2. Truth: Difficulties such as these require continued effort and sustained practice. You have to keep trying, keep showing up and doing the work, practice, and even start over when necessary, stay with it, and ask for help. “To stay, you have to believe there is something worth staying for…and then you have to bring yourself back, again and again,” Geneen Roth.

by Hugh MacLeod

3. Truth: Things are workable, and you already have what it will take to succeed. You have basic, innate kindness and wisdom.  You know who you are.

“In Buddhist teachings, as well as in the teachings of many other contemplative or mystical traditions, the basic view is that people are fundamentally good and healthy. It’s as if everyone who has ever been born has the same birthright, which is enormous potential of warm heart and clear mind. The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need, that what we have already is good. Every moment of time has enormous energy in it, and we could connect with that.” ~Pema Chödrön

by Hugh MacLeod

One wish: I wish you, all of us, the joy that comes with this hard work, of being who we are, of loving who we are, all the messy and stinky and beautiful bits. Our difficulties aren’t something to rush through or get over or past, but rather they are our life, they are living. Despair and even happiness are simply the weather and our basic goodness the sun, always there even when we can’t see it.

“It doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years — we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.” ~Sharon Salzberg

by Hugh MacLeod

  • Okay, it’s your turn. Speak your truths and make a wish.

Something Good

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It’s Monday, so here’s a list of things that are good:

heART Exchange

This is such a great project, and the gift you make and receive seem to keep on giving, and giving, sending out ripples of joy, waves of love. If you are an artist, you need to watch this website and get in on the next art swap.

Cyber Giving Monday

I first heard about this from 365 Give. I love having even more opportunities to make a positive impact on the existence of another being, so I am in. This morning, in honor of my dear friend Kelly, who was an avid gardener, I donated a “Gardener’s Basket: This basket represents everything a family will need to start a sustainable farm – tree seedlings, rabbits to generate organic manure, chickens to eat pests and a hive of bees to pollinate crops and increase yields” through one of my favorite charities, Heifer International.

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation – Dell Big Crow Holiday Gift Project

I can’t say enough about how great this project is. Recently ABC News and Diane Sawyer did a Special 20/20 Edition on Pine Ridge called, “Hidden America: Children of the Plains.” I dare you to watch even just the first ten minutes and not want to email Christine or Julie immediately for names of tribe members to send gifts to. If I had the money, the first ten minutes of the episode would have had me rounding up supplies and a crew of people who knew how to do stuff to go down there and fix peoples’ houses, and then I’d start scholarship funds for every kid, make repairs to the schools, make sure every kid has enough to eat, every day. But I don’t have that kind of money, so I need you to help, starting with this one project. It is not right that in a country where, even with the poor economy, so many have so much and these people have so little. You can say what you want about grown ups, but no child ever did anything to deserve to grow up in such poverty.

Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth

This book has been a real help to me.  For example, “When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself — that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control,” (82-83).

Morgan Spurlock’s New Project, “The Failure Club.”

I first read about this project on A Year of Living Wisely. Here’s an article about the project, “Morgan Spurlock Launches ‘Failure Club’.” In the trailer for the show, “Welcome to Failure Club,” he says “We’ve all been told for so long in our lives the things we should be doing that most of us don’t ever do the things that we want to be doing. And the minute you break down that one little piece that’s holding you back, your whole outlook on the world will change.” Amen!

The Moth: True Stories Told Live

We listen to this on satellite radio, but there are also some stories you can listen to online. I love this show almost as much as I love This American Life.

Cardboard People

Since this week’s list has been more serious, maybe even a bit preachy, here’s something fun. Anton Tang, a talented artist and blogger from Singapore, photographs plastic “cardboard people” in everyday settings and environments.