Category Archives: Trust Tending

Something Good

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image by Sharon Pruitt of Pink Sherbet Photography

Colossal: An art and design blog. This site shares the coolest stuff. Consider yourself warned: once you start looking, you might not be able to stop.

Danielle LaPorte’s Burning Question series. As a writer, I love to use these as prompts, but I think they are valuable even if you aren’t a writer or blogger, even if you don’t regularly journal or keep a diary. Just take a moment to contemplate, because, as Danielle says “Generally, I think people should ask more questions. Of themselves. Of each other. Questions are doorways that lead to higher consciousness… or pop culture trivia. Both are good. Join in.”

This quote, from Brene’ Brown’s latest TED Talk: “Vulnerability is not weakness….vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage.” To acknowledge your fear, let it touch your tender heart, to be brave anyway, to keep your heart open, to remain vulnerable rather than closing up, numbing out, hiding away is courageous.

This quote, from Cheri Huber:  “The best preparation we can make for another time and place is to drop everything else and be present in this moment.”

image by Sharon Pruitt of Pink Sherbet Photography

An Erica Experiment: Saying Goodbye to TV… This post by Erica Staab, one of my new favorite amazing women, combines three of my favorite things: Erica Staab, Kristin Noelle (check her out, she’s also amazing), and the mindful TV viewing, digital detox revolution. Eric and I gave up regular TV for the last time in 2004, and it was one of the smartest, best things we ever did. Even if you don’t want to give it up completely, it’s good practice to do so for a week and see what you might notice or learn, about yourself or your life. It just so happens that Danielle LaPorte’s burning question for this week is “What would you like to stop doing?”

This post on Keri Smith’s blog: Make your own damn world. “Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping…Stop it and just DO!” Like I always say, if you are waiting for something to happen, stop waiting and happen. Or, stop doing altogether and just be.

My topography, Christina Rosalie’s blog. There’s a good chance I mentioned this once already, but it bears repeating. I first heard of this in my Blogging from the Heart class. Susannah Conway interviewed Christina about blogging, and I fell in love with how she talked about it–for example, she describes her mission statement for her blog this way “To offer evidence that it’s possible to begin, to dream things real, and to find the narrative of your soul in the midst of the uncertainty and the messiness of the moment at hand”–so I went over to visit her site, and I fell utterly in love with her, her gorgeous writing about small, simple things, things that are massive, brilliant, and heartbreakingly real.

Gwyn-Michael’s latest post on Scoutie Girl, learning to see again. the beauty in the breakdown. She says “What is mine to do in the world is to awaken people to other ways of seeing. To inspire hope where there is doubt, love where there is pain…I am an artist using my hands to show, my heart to see, and my voice to tell. I believe there is beauty in the breakdown, and I am not alone.” After a week of not being well, the wreck and raw of post retreat, a speeding ticket, the death of a loved one, and yet also so much beauty and love, I am with you, Gwyn-Michael.

from gwyn-michael's post

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: Being content is what will make us successful.

In this video, psychologist and teacher Shawn Achor argues that happiness inspires productivity. He says we are confused when it comes to success and happiness, because we think the formula is “if I work harder, I’ll be more successful, and when I’m more successful, I’ll be happy” and that’s not it at all. “90% of your long-term happiness is predicted not by your external world [your measurable success], but by the way your brain processes the world.” Being negative, neutral, or stressed does not bring happiness, (and thus, not as much success either). Happiness, as your perspective, is the center that generates everything else. In order to cultivate and strengthen this center, he suggests (and has found to be true through research) keeping a gratitude list, journaling about one positive experience a day, exercising, meditating, and practicing random acts of kindness–mindfulness, compassion, gratitude, connection to your body, and embodiment of the present moment.

Not only do we discover happiness resting in the present moment with this attitude, but we are more creative and productive. Shawn Achor suggests, at the end of this talk, that discovering contentment for ourselves, understanding that success is not what makes us happy, we can send out ripples of positivity and create a true revolution.

P.S. I think I may have made this video sound a bit stuffy and dry, but his delivery is really fun, so you should watch.

 

2. Truth: There is a you-shaped hole.

You are necessary, and only you can be you. I am on the Trust Tending with Kristin Noelle mailing list (Trust Note), and a few days ago, she sent one with the subject line “Trust Note: You-Shaped Hole.” Her message is so important, I’ve been passing it along every chance I get. She said:

Yes. You matter.

As humans move toward greater wholeness, your piece of that whole can’t be filled by anyone but you. Your perspective, your experiences, your voice: they bring balance to the rest of ours. They’re a mirror for some of us, showing us things about ourselves we need to see. And they’re windows for just as many more – glimpses past the boxes and walls we inevitably and inadvertently construct around our sense of what’s real and true and worth seeing.

There’s a you-shaped hole in our collective experience and I hope with all my heart you’re stepping into it with all the trust you’ve got.

3. Truth: “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are,” (Chinese Proverb).

In my yoga class on Sunday, my teacher said “when we engage, we tend to tense up, and we need to learn to practice soft, gentle engagement.” This is so true. When we push, when we are aggressive, this is not right action. We must connect with gentleness, move with ease, relax into this very moment, just as we are and just as it is.

P.S. I just saw today that Susan Piver has an article on the Huffington Post, “Meditation, Relaxation and the Self-Help Demon” where she talks about meditation as a tool for relaxing into reality. It’s a really great read.

One wish:

Trust yourself. Be yourself. Be happy and relax, and in so doing, allow success and contentment, whatever that ends up being or looking like, no matter how quickly or slowly it happens, to organically arise.

image by Kristin Noelle

Two related posts so worth the read:

  • “Stop Searching and Start Being” by Daniel Collinsworth on Metta Drum, in which he says “You are not incomplete, and there is nothing you must search for. You only have the work of nurturing and developing those aspects of You that you feel driven to bring forth. They are already present within you.” He uses the cultivation of a tree from a seed as a really powerful metaphor for how we sometimes forget what it takes to grow, to remind us that “what we are searching for already exists as a seed within us.”
  • “Why I haven’t wanted to write about eating” by Anna Guest-Jelley on Curvy Yoga, in which she talks about learning to trust herself. She shares that before she learned “I was still very much overriding my intuition at every turn, thinking it was clearly too stupid to guide me, considering how I looked and felt” but that now “I think intuitive eating means showing up for our unique and individual work of doing whatever it is we need to do to get back in touch with our feelings and body. We can share tips and support each other, but the exact roadmap will be different for each of us.”

So again, kind and gentle reader, trust yourself, be yourself. And remember that there is a you-shaped hole, a missing piece of a much larger puzzle, necessary to the wholeness of all the rest of it, the rest of us.