Category Archives: Justine Musk

Something Good

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Charter for Compassion

This isn’t something new, just something worth reminding you about, and as important now (or more?) as it was two years ago.

Reboot Program Resource

“Rebooting” is what Joe Cross from the documentary Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead called his juice fast, and this website is inspired by the film. Even if you don’t want to do a fast, just want to eat healthier, be healthier, this site is a great resource. I started with this page: Simple Eating Guidelines. (P.S. This site seemed to be having some hiccups today, so hopefully the link will work for you).

Naked Mango & Veggie Smoothie

As you may have heard, I am contemplating doing a juice fast. In preparation, I bought a bunch of premade juices to see what combinations I might like. I tried this one this morning, and it was like drinking sunshine.

Sunday Services with Ronna Detrick

She describes these this way: “Smart, engaging conversation about topics that matter.” She’s talked with a few of my favorite people. It’s worth a listen.

Fiona the Blind Trash Can Dog Rescued

Last year, Eldad and Audrey Hagar found Fiona — sick, blind, flea-infested and covered in grime — in a trash heap in South Los Angeles, and rescued her. If you have been reading this blog for more than a day, you already know that I love dogs with my whole heart. I resisted watching this video at first, but was so happy I finally did. Yes, it broke my heart, made me weep, but the ending is so so happy.

GoD and DoG

I can’t share that story without sharing this video, and if you watched the one about Fiona, you’ve already got a tissue. Amen, Bow Wow.

The Art of Getting Creatively Unstuck, by Justine Musk

Yes, another article by Justine Musk, but like I’ve said before, she’s on fire. How can I help it, how can I not love her? How can I when she is so brilliant and her website tagline is “because you’re a creative badass”?

The Rule of H.A.L.T.

This is actually something from Alcoholics Anonymous, and I’ve also seen it used in the context of developing healthy eating habits, but I realized this weekend that it might prove useful to anyone trying to change a habit, take better care of themselves, learn balance. The A.A. intent is to keep yourself from relapsing as an alcoholic, but I think it would also work to keep yourself from doing whatever it is you do that’s not healthy, not in your best interest, would help to keep you from getting hooked by whatever it is, from giving in to old behaviors or ways of being that no longer serve you: “Don’t become too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.” It’s a good rule for taking care of yourself in general, enit?

Why PLAY is a matter of life & death

In a comment on this post on Unicorns for Socialism, I told Alexandra that it’s like the universe keeps whispering in her ear “write this” as a roundabout way to get me the exact message I need. I had read the original piece she references here, but the reminder was so welcome. Go ahead and ignore everything else on today’s list, but you should absolutely read both posts, Alexandra’s and the original. She shares the five wishes from “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware, (who went on to write a whole book on the subject after making her original post). The top five are this:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself —
not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Assuming this list is utterly true, what are a few things you might start doing differently?

Songs I Love Right Now

I had a few videos I wanted to share this week, like a cover of Hall and Oates “I Can’t Go For That” by Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers:

And my new favorite song, “Feel So Close” by Calvin Harris:

But that wasn’t enough, so I made you a “mix tape.” Have your own Monday dance party, be a one person flash mob, start a spontanious disco in the hallway at work. Enjoy! P.S. I apologize that there are a few commercials in the mix, but I wanted to include the original videos when I could: Songs I Love Right Now.

Something Good

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1. Another day, another opportunity for a fresh start, to begin again.

2. “Where I’ve Been” blog posts. I can’t wait to try this.

3. The Pressure, a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr: Oh how I know this pressure, and want to discover what it might be like without it.

4. Gratitude Practice. Spending some time, every day, thinking about what you are grateful for, writing about it, or even saying “thank you” directly or publicly, is a path to contentment and joy. Here’s a freebie intended to help, “3 good things that happened today,” shared by way of a Scoutie Girl post, “art to inspire: the power of positivity.”

5. Slow down your writing from Kaspa at Writing Our Way Home. This is some really great advice, not just for writing Small Stones, but for writing practice in general.

6. Hannah Marcotti shared a list of some really good stuff to read, Beautiful faces. Magical Places. My favorite quote is from the post on Find Your Balance (because if you’ve been reading this blog for long, you know I struggle with finding balance):

When I say balance, I’m not saying, “Be like me.”
I’m saying, “Be more like you.”

7. I knew there was a reason I have been in love with Ray Bradbury’s work most of my life. His love of reading and writing is my own. He says:

Books are smart and brilliant and wise. Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.

8. How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love by Maria Popova. This is a really great list! And the blog where I found this post and the Ray Bradbury video, Brain Pickings, is really great too.

9. how to be original by Justine Musk. She is on fire lately. This post is all about the four qualities of a compelling creative voice.

10. 40 Days of Silence, a free ecourse from Erica Staab. I signed up for this and have been getting the daily emails. They are short but powerful, such good reminders! My favorite from this last week was a quote from an interview with John O’Donohue, (a really wonderful Irish poet, he wrote some of my favorite poems), which said “To return back into ourselves, there are three things needed”: stillness, silence, and solitude, and he explained why each was so essential.

11. A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted, a post by Erica Staab and a poem by John O’Donohue. I couldn’t stop crying when I read this, both Erica’s words and the poem. Erica said:

Tears sprang to my eyes as I thought how often we think we have the “wrong” answer. How often we are stuck in the thought that we should be anywhere else but where we are. How often we think that we are handling our grief, our children, our jobs, our friendships in the “wrong” way. And sometimes yes, things need to change, but more often than not it is only because we haven’t given ourselves the compassion and more objective look that we give to others.

12. Brene’ Brown’s latest TED talk, “Listening to Shame.”

13. If you never saw Brene’ Brown’s first TED talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” I highly recommend it. Judy Clement Wall wrote a post today on a Human Thing, “What I know,” about that first talk’s impact on her. While her details are different, I had the same experience of that first video. It changed my life, helped save my life, in about a million different ways. Judy said:

It changed everything for me. Not that day, or that week, or that month, but over the course of the almost-year since I watched it. It was the beginning of deep down, gut-wrenching honesty, first with myself and then with my husband. It was the beginning of true fearlessness, of love like a religion, of faith.

Amen.

14. The wreck and the raw of post retreat. Dear reader, I am in the thick of this. I went to the Boulder Shambhala Center this weekend (along with about 340 others, and 1500 who joined us in a live, online broadcast) and received a new practice from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche that broke my heart wide open, which always leaves me completely exhausted, but in this really beautiful way, feeling everything that it means to be alive–the good, the bad, and the ugly. So today, I am attempting to take John O’Donohue’s advice from A Blessing For One Who Is Exhausted and be excessively gentle with myself.