Sandra Pawula | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club,

We all have parts of ourselves that need working on. We all think thoughts that aren’t the best thoughts we could be thinking. We all do things we wish we would have done better, or differently, or not at all. We all make mistakes, every single day….every single one of us. And then, we all wake up every day with lots of chances to start over. It is one of the miracles of life…Let yesterday go, be done with it. Walk onto your light-filled path and make today a better day.

2. A Pathetic Internet Troll Called This Mom’s Little Boy Ugly. Her Reply Is Perfection. on Viral Nova.

3. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

The opposite of samsara (the cycle of suffering) is when all the walls fall down, when the cocoon completely disappears and we are totally open to whatever may happen, with no withdrawing, no centralizing into ourselves. That is what we aspire to, the warrior’s journey. That is what stirs us: leaping, being thrown out of the nest, going through the initiation rites, growing up, stepping into something that’s uncertain and unknown.

4. Yo Oprah, I’mma Let You Finish But Amy Poehler Has The Best Body Image Advice Of All Time on Upworthy.

5. You are a writer. So, write. Deeply. on Rebelle Society.

6. Prompt of the Week: Junk Mail Poetry from Wolverine Farm Publishing Co. & Bookstore, and my dear friend Chloé, the 2014 Poet Laureate of Fort Collins.

7. The generosity boomerang from Seth Godin.

8. Five things you can do to overcome fear on Life is Limitless.

9. The Bite I Chose Not to Take, from Mara Glatzel.

10. Truthbomb from Danielle LaPorte, “Make the necessary adjustments for your life to become more meaningful.”

11. A Conversation with Julia Cameron about Channeling Your Creativity on Huffington Post.

12. The ultimate guide to naming your “thing” from Alexandra Franzen.

13. Good stuff from Zen Habits: The Habit Action List and The Reality of This Moment.

14. Be Yourself – Short Documentary.

15. 6 Things That I Understand About The Fat Acceptance Movement from the Militant Baker.

16. Wisdom from Geneen Roth,

For some reason, we are truly convinced that if we criticize ourselves, the criticism will lead to change. If we are harsh, we believe we will end up being kind. If we shame ourselves, we believe we end up loving ourselves. It has never been true, not for a moment, that shame leads to love. Only love leads to love.

17. Good stuff from Bored Panda: Photographer Takes Stunning Surreal Photos With An Old $50 Film Camera and WTF? 22 Of The Weirdest and Most Unexplainable Pictures Ever and Hidden Macro World Revealed By Japanese Photographer Miki Asai.

18. Use These 19 Genius Cleaning Hacks This Spring. I Can’t Believe I Never Thought Of #13 Til Now. on Viral Nova. Seriously, #13 is brilliant.

19. Success, failure and the drive to keep creating, Elizabeth Gilbert’s second TED Talk, in which she says,

For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego, which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. And that’s how I pushed through it.

And,

Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service, it might be raising corgis, I don’t know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.

Word.

20. The Moment This Man Finds Out He’s Going To Be A Grandpa Will Make You Tear Up on Huffington Post. Somehow “we’re getting a new puppy” never manages to elicit the same emotion…

21. Friday’s Confession: I Was Copied from Tiffany Han.

22. How to Be a Writer by M. Molly Backes on Medium.

23. The art of Sarah Jarrett.

24. By Another Way, a poem by Jan Richardson shared by Ronna Detrick on her blog.

25. My Formula for Stumbling Through with Grace from Be More with Less.

26. Wisdom from Kristin Noelle, who describes so perfectly where I am right now,

…those stretches when you’re still close enough to some “before” version of yourself to remember him or her well, to still have his or her knee-jerk feelings and reactions to things….but you’re not that version of yourself anymore either, and you’re noticing a whole new paradigm, a whole new way of being in the world, vying for attention and time.

27. Newspaper + marker = poetry: The story behind my newspaper blackout poems, on Medium from Austin Kleon.

28. Shared on Rowdy Kittens Happy Links: The Scratch Interview with Cheryl Strayed, and On the Long Haul from Dani Shapiro, and 10 Ways I Embraced Simplicity and You Can Too from Sandra Pawula.

29. What I Wish I Knew After My MFA Ended on the Brevity blog.

30. New Age Bullshit Generator.

31. Writing Practice – why it’s time to stop thinking of writing as a profession by Damien Walter.

32. Teachasana, “An online resource for yoga teachers and teachers-in-training.”

33. On writing, courage, and showing up on Life with Lucia.

34. 28 T-Shirts For When You Literally Cannot from BuzzFeed.

35. Wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert on Facebook, Are you feeling more afraid than you need to feel?

36. How To Stop Making A Big Deal About Your Problems, Pema Chödrön on MindBodyGreen.

37. Having No Expectations: The Secret to Freedom and Happiness.

1. Wisdom from Maya Angelou, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” No kidding.

2. The Daring Interview Series: Meet Gavin Aung Than on Brene’ Brown’s blog.

3. How to End the Endless Game of Catching Up on Be More With Less.

4. Wisdom from Mara Glatzel, “Believing takes practice.” (P.S. Click the link and read the whole newsletter. I promise it’s worth it.)

5. These 22 Photos Will Make You Fall In Love With Foxes on Bored Panda.

6. 17 Baby Elephants Learning How To Use Their Trunks on BuzzFeed.

7. Jawdropping views of cozy homes built in an abandoned office tower, a lagoon, a recycling heap and more on the TED Blog.

8. When I Am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver.

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

8. 4 Good Reminders When You’ve Had a Bad Day from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

9. 20 Magical Tree Tunnels You Should Definitely Take A Walk Through on Bored Panda.

10. He Sent A Photo Of The Sunset In Japan To His Parents. What He Got 20 Minutes Later Is Beautiful. on Viral Nova.

11. The biggest adventure: forever, then all of a sudden from Christina Rosalie.

12. Trust and attention, the endless dance and The right moment from Seth Godin.

13. Wisdom from Isabel Foxen Duke,

Trying to control our weight is really just an attempt to control the uncontrollable — primarily, but not limited to, what other people think of us…There is nothing you can do about uncertainty in life…except stop trying to control it. Let go or be dragged.

14. The Crossroads of Should and Must by Elle Luna on Medium.

15. Real Artists Have Day Jobs by Sara Benincasa on Medium.

16. Dealing and Healing After Loss: 9 Tips to Help You Get Through the Day on Tiny Buddha.

17. Note from the Universe,

Everything in your life, right now, Jill, is awesome. Everything is in its right place, under grace, and whether or not this makes perfect sense yet, one day it will. And the time swiftly approaches when you’ll be exceedingly grateful for all that has brought you to this day and contributed to who you’ve become, because it is exactly that person who is now poised to live as you have always dreamed you would one day live.

18. A reminder from Brave Girls Club,

You know so much more than you think you know, you just have to remember it. There’s so much wisdom in that amazing heart of yours that just needs to be reminded and listened-to and encouraged to speak out.

Think about when you were a little girl….all of those hopes, dreams and ambitions that were unique and wonderful and unabashed. What held you back as you grew older, from wanting or working for those tender dreams?

Don’t be afraid to be the person that you thought you might grow up to be….that person that you dreamed of being…that amazing woman that you looked into the future to see when you were a little girl. Uncover those dreams again and believe in them….shoot for what is deepest in your heart…and be the woman that you always wanted to be.

19. How I Became a Buddhist and What It Really Means from Sandra Pawula.