Category Archives: Self-Care

Something Good

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blossoms at lory state park

25 Self-Care Tips for the Body & Soul from Gentle Living. This is a really great list. The only thing missing is “26. Read this list.”

The Power of Vulnerability, a two day workshop in Boulder with Brene’ Brown–holy wow! I wished last week that I could experience an in-person workshop with her, and only five days later, less than a week, a friend emails to tell me it’s happening. I registered right after I heard about it. It’s going to be awesome.

Telling True Stories with Laurie Wagner. It just started today, and it’s already awesome. Just to give you a taste, here’s a quote from Laurie, “Good writing is honest writing. Good writing is just naming things as they are – beautifully, soberly and as truthfully as you can.” See what I mean?

Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness Juice. My favorite one so far.

And to finish, a few things I love right now about Fort Collins, (in addition to all the things I normally love about Fort Collins):

Gilsdorf Garage. Growing up the daughter of an incredibly skilled, smart, and honest mechanic, I have high standards for mechanics and shops. In the many years I’ve lived too far away from my dad to have him work on my car, I have at various times been mistreated and cheated (once it was so bad, we nicknamed that car “the money pit”), and would never recommend someone who wasn’t really good.

On the Gilsdorf website, they say “Gildsdorf Garage has been in business for over 50 years with the principles of honesty, integrity, and quality, guided by the ethics founded by Ed Gilsdorf in 1950.” When I got the snow tires taken off my car this weekend, the tire shop said it was time for new brakes. This morning, we showed up unannounced at Gilsdorf’s and not only did they work us in, but will have my car ready by the end of the day. They are always professional, kind, and they do good work for a fair price. There’s even a chance that they might wash my car if they have time and that would be awesome.

Red Table Soups. I’ve had at least ten different kinds of soup, (there’s a different one each day), at both locations, (the original and The Mayor of Old Town), and they have always been awesome. How do they do that? They also make some pretty fine sandwiches, and I’ve heard their pizza is really good too.

Lory State Park and Horsetooth Mountain Open Space. Eric and I hiked a trail on Sunday that started in Lory State Park, went into Horsetooth Mountain Park, and looped back around. Lory is only ten miles from our house, so super easy to get to, and there are so many trail options. You can hike as easy or as hard, as short or as long as you like.

easter grass along the trail: awesome

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.