Category Archives: Zen Habits

Something Good

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1. Good stuff from Marianne Elliott: Why I haven’t practiced yoga for five weeks. And why that makes me a better teacher and How I pack for 5 months: a packing ninja reveals her secrets and Telling the difference between a bad day, a run of bad days, and burnout.

2. Good stuff on Elephant Journal: Natural Remedies to Heal your Thyroid, and 7 Ways to Help Someone Who is Grieving, and We Are Not Here to Do Everything, We Are Here to Do Something, and 10 Things You Need to Stop Doing Today to be Happier, and Letters to Myself. P.S. Maybe you’ve noticed I share a lot of their stuff? I’m a paid subscriber — the content is totally worth it.

3. a room with a view on SF Girl by Bay. I’ve talked before about how much I love Amsterdam. Next time I go, I want to spend at least a month, maybe a whole summer, and stay in an apartment just like this one.

4. Good stuff from Jen Louden: How Being a Good Girl Gets in the Way of What Calls You and Finding Your People Right Where You Are.

5. Wisdom from Tama J. Kieves,

Do not be afraid to follow a thousand directions. You are only listening for one voice. You are following heat, light and truth. There is no right answer to find. An inspired life is all about developing a relationship with your own wholeness and love.

6. Good stuff from MindBodyGreen: Why Paleo Didn’t Work For Me, and 5-Step Cleanse To Maximize Thyroid, Adrenal, Immune & Digestive Health, and 5 Ways To Love The Present No Matter How Scared You Are, and 10 Fun Facts About Sweet Potatoes, and The 7 Chakras for Beginners, and Autumn Kale & Quinoa Salad, and 5 Things A Yoga Instructor Should Never Say.

7. Rise and shine: the daily routines of history’s most creative minds on The Guardian.

8. In case you feel like you need permission today… from Kat McNally.

9. Karma points, happy break-ups, true confessions, darkness + light: the BEST things I’ve ever written … that aren’t on this site from Alexandra Franzen.

10. Mudita from Rachel Cole.

11. The Body, Mind, and Space of Self-Care for Creatives – Part 3: The Space on Scoutie Girl.

12. My Pursuit of the Art of Living on Zen Habits.

13. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

At some point, if you’re fortunate, you’ll hit a wall of truth and wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. At that point you’ll feel highly motivated to find out what frees you and helps you to be kinder and more loving, less klesha [i.e. mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions] driven and confused. At that point you’ll actually want to be present—present as you go through a door, present as you take a step, present as you wash your hands or wash a dish, present to being triggered, present to simmering, present to the ebb and flow of your emotions and thoughts. Day in and day out, you’ll find that you notice sooner when you’re hooked, and it will be easier to refrain. If you continue to do this, a kind of shedding happens—a shedding of old habits, a shedding of being run around by pleasure and pain, a shedding of being held hostage by worldly concerns.

14. 3 habits for dissolving envy from Danielle LaPorte.

15. 25 things every woman needs to know from Hanna Brencher.

16. Be Cool and Don’t Be an Asshole, really good advice from Chris Grosso on Huffington Post.

17. Shared on last week’s Positively Present Picks: Need-To-Know: Practical Magic, and 21 Harsh But Eye-Opening Writing Tips From Great Authors, and The path is not straight, and Dog People Unite Temporary Tattoo, and Be Happy: 46 Proven Techniques to Increase Your Happiness and One Way to Get More Sex, and Convos With My 2-Year-Old – Season 2, Episode 1 – “Dinner Time,” (this whole series is one of the funniest things ever).

And on this week’s list, Socktober from Kid President and Soul Pancake, and How to Do What You Love.

18. feeding the feelings: my confession (please be gentle) from Liv Lane.

19. When did you get the call to service?, a beautiful confession from Andrea Scher on Superhero Life.

20. 10 Dog Training Tips for Rescue Dogs, (which seem like good tips for any dog owner really).

21. The Inconvenient Moments from The Scribbler’s Journal.

22. Tender from Simply Living with Ariana Pritchett.

23. Get Simple and Focus on What Matters Most on Be More With Less.

24. Missing Mahlon from Rowdy Kittens.

25. Hashtags: #MomTexts with Jimmy Fallon.

26. Pack Dog, a website I am afraid to join because of the potential for time suck and cuteness overload.

27. Where Bloggers Blog on Tumblr.

28. 6 Things Every Couple Should Stop Doing from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

29. Claire has a birthday message for her mommy, on Hello Giggles. Warning: Danger Baby alert, (“Danger Baby” is code for a kid so impossibly cute, it will make you want to make, adopt, or steal a tiny human, immediately). Even though this video is only a minute and a half long, you know that the adult who filmed and edited spend hours and hours working on it.

30. Wisdom from Chögyam Trungpa,

We must be willing to be completely ordinary people, which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid of our imperfections, then they will be enemies, obstacles on the road to our “self-improvement.”

31. Wisdom from Mark Nepo, “The reward for kindness is not goodness or being thought well of or even having kindness returned. No, the reward for kindness is joy.”

32. Don’t know if you heard, but I am currently obsessed with all things sweet potato. Here are a few recipes I’m going to try: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Quesadillas and Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas.

33. The truth about Columbus from The Oatmeal.

34. 3 Powerful Insights About Finding Yourself and Creating Change on Tiny Buddha.

35. What do you do when you DON’T KNOW what to do? from Kute Blackson. This guy has so much good energy, watching one of his videos is like watching someone dance.

36. 7 Ways To Find Your Inner (and Real) Happiness, Ed and Deb Shapiro on Intent Blog.

37. The Other Things We Do: Going to the Dogs, a beautiful post about grief, dogs, and words.

38. The Freedom of Less on Becoming Minimalist.
homecoming1639. Rescued Pit Bull saves foster family’s 4-year-old son on Dog Heirs. What I love about this story is that the mom had initially only planned to foster this dog, but after what TatorTot did for her son, “I am never going to let this dog go…I owe him for the rest of his life.”

40. Potty Talk! [Original] Need a good laugh!? You’ll have tears streaming… It really is the funniest video.

41. Wisdom from Randy Pausch, The key question to keep asking is, “Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have.”

42. An interview with Susan Piver about the Open Heart Project, in which she shares this wisdom,

If I was to measure my life by how much money is in my bank account, you know, I would not be very happy right now…But if I had to measure my life by how myself can I be every day, and how much can I offer that makes me happy – I don’t mean to sound sappy about it – but it makes me overjoyed to offer this.

43. Wisdom from Laurie Foley, “To do lists used to be my tada lists, summits upon which to plant flags. Now they are merely trailheads where I start letting go.”

44. A piece about Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York, from ABCNews.

45. Dutch TV interview with David Sedaris, (the interview portion is in English).

46. Julie+Nate // Portland Engagement Session, a beautiful set of pictures from Phil Chester. The ones with the light and the trees are brilliant, so beautiful they almost hurt to look at them.

47. Plant Your Feet, a poem from Ken Roberts on Museful Things.

Something Good (Part Two)

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oaklandbayviewAs promised, here’s Part Two of the list.

1. What Work Do Millenials Want to Do? by Lodro Rinzler on Huffington Post.

2. 8 Truths to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming Your Freedom from Deva Coaching.

3. Looking to start a yoga practice, need a teacher but don’t want to leave the house? Yogaglo might be worth checking out.

4. Taped Rai – Shadow of The Sun, such a beautiful song.

5. I’ve Gained Weight. Now What Am I Gonna Do? from Drop It and Eat.

6. How To Find Your Calling on MindBodyGreen.

7. The Best Examples of Street Art from 2012. I may have shared this before, but it’s cool enough to do it again.

8. 10 Inspiring Bookshops around the World. This is what’s known in my tribe as book porn.

9. Wisdom from Rumi, “I have been a seeker and still am, but I stopped asking books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my soul.”

10. Kid Recites Bible – Then Busts Out George Strait During Pre-School Graduation. Right on, little dude.

harbor11. Good stuff from Be More with Less: I Want to Punch Perfection in the Face and 6 Blogs to Inspire Simplicity and Minimalism.

12. Less Clicking, More Making from Marc Johns.

13. Feeling drrrrrained by emails, blogs, newsletters — the whole Internet? Take back your power. from Alexandra Franzen.

14. The Shero’s School for Revolutionaries with Jen Louden. Lots of wisdom from lots of good people, for free.

15. Important questions from Ram Dass,

Ask yourself: Where am I?
Answer: Here.

Ask yourself: What time is it?
Answer: Now.

Say it until you can hear it.

16. I Am A Yogi on MindBodyGreen.

portofsanfran17. Good stuff from Marc and Angel Hack Life: 7 Miserable Choices You Make Too Often and 9 Things You Do NOT Need to Be Happy.

18. ten-to-go: in the kitchen, on SF Girl by Bay. Beautiful and yummy kitchen items.

19. Truthbomb from Danielle LaPorte, “You have what you need.”

20. From Brave Girls Club,

You can do amazing things with the simplest things. You can have so little and be so happy. You can take small amounts of time and perform life-changing acts…Your heart knows when it’s time, and you will have the strength to do it. And best of all, you will see enormous changes happen in your life when you let the unimportant things go and embrace the things that quietly sustain you and bring you joy…It may not look like the most glamorous life, but it is one filled with joy, peace, and harmony; one where laughter is a welcome and frequent companion; one where worries are few, where long meaningful conversations are many; one that is waiting for you when you are ready to take the steps to get there…Simplify today, one little thing at a time. You can do it. You are LOVED.

oaklandbayview0221. A poem from Rainer Maria Rilke, Go to the Limits of Your Longing,

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

sanfranbridge0222. 10 Things You Should Do Every Day, on Elephant Journal. Again, I’ve shared this before but it’s important enough to take another look.

23. The Art of Decluttering on MindBodyGreen.

24. Me, Myself, & I from Rachel Cole.

25. Note from the Universe,

Nobody, Jill, is who they are based upon one decision, one day, one path, one chance, one relationship, or one anything else. Every day is brand new and opportunity never stops knocking.

26. Perspective from Dawn Dalili.

27. Can I Feel Your Soul Through Your Work? from Jonathan Fields. Word.

28. Everyday Icons: The Writer, an interview with Alexandra Franzen, and a follow-up blog post, Yet another (astonishingly simple) way to write your own bio.

berkeleymural29. Your Story Matters, in which Jen Louden references the workshop we did together this weekend, and makes an incredibly important point — maybe the most important point of all.

30. 8 Creativity Lessons from a Pixar Animator on Zen Habits.

31. Neil Gaiman’s Advice to Aspiring Writers on Brain Pickings.

32. A Chat with Inspired and Unstoppable Tama Kieves on The Mojo Lab.

33. the art of thinking highly of yourself by Justine Musk.

berkeleymural0234. Woman Secretly Filmed Dancing at Bus Stop Lands Prestigious Theater Gig on Gawker. This video makes me all kinds of happy. The fact that it has a happy ending is a bonus.

35. I am buying Sam an elephant, and here’s why: No Friendship Can Compare To This One Between A Dog And An Elephant on Buzzfeed and Elephant and dog best friends love playing in the water together (VIDEO).

36. Tears, Tails, Dickey and Duane from Susan Piver. Just one more reason I love her.

37. San Francisco Adventures! from Vivienne McMaster.