1. Only one more week until Ringo gets his final round of shots and then we can start walking him and taking him to daycare, wearing him out and getting a break from him. I love that little dude, but I’ve got a lot of other things going on too.
2. A good therapist. Her ability to see, her willingness to help, her wisdom and compassion. It doesn’t hurt that we are a lot alike so she’s able to help me both laugh at myself and see my worth more clearly.
3. Crackers, cheese, and a crunchy apple.
4. Realizing I’ve made a mistake, and being able to fix it.
5. New books. Wish I could spend the weekend reading, but I have yoga teacher training.
Bonus joy: Tiny beautiful things and good friends that make it easier to not give up.
5. 27 Days: Writing Prompts to Grow Your Powers, for FREE! Here’s an excellent gift you can give YOURSELF for the holidays, 27 Days: Writing Prompts to Grow Your Powers, Laurie Wagner’s 27 Day writing prompt program delivered daily to your inbox. It’s a simple way to keep your writing practice alive during the holidays, and an excellent opportunity to start a practice if you don’t have one. You’re welcome.
6. Architect Bypasses Mortgage Payments, Builds a Tiny Home on My Modern Met. My obsession with tiny houses is not that I want to live in one, (my house is only a little over 1000 square feet, so I’m in a pretty small space already), but that I want something like this in my backyard, to use as a studio, class, guest space.
When we’re speeding along, we violate our own natural rhythms in a way that prevents us from listening to our inner life and being in a resonant field with others. We get tight. We get small. We override our capacity to appreciate beauty, to celebrate, to serve from the heart.
Fear contains powerful messages. When we’re courageous enough to be with what scares us, we can awaken our intuition and create a new path for healing. Whether you’re worried about getting sick, you’re currently dealing with a health issue, or you’re scared and struggling in other areas of your life, don’t judge your fears, invite them to tea.
It’s common to belittle our fears and try to pre-maturely cleanse them away. But just because we’re afraid, doesn’t mean we’re toxic or failing or falling off the spiritual wagon. Fear is one of the many colors in our emotional palette, and it’s often there for a reason. There’s nothing weak or less evolved about being frightened. And guess what, you’re not alone. We’re all scared. No one is fearless.
31. Wisdom from Rumi,
Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.
Nobody’s going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you’re rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It’s up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.
“How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?” asks Stanley Kunitz in a poem.
and
Thomas Merton, the great Benedictine monk, captured this paradox succinctly. “Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and heart has turned to stone,” he wrote.
So whatever you believe about homosexuality, keep it to yourself. Instead, try telling a gay kid that you love him and you don’t want him to die. Try inviting her into your church and into your home and into your life. Anything other than that simply doesn’t matter.
1. Only one more week until Ringo gets his final round of shots and then we can start walking him and taking him to daycare, wearing him out and getting a break from him. I love that little dude, but I’ve got a lot of other things going on too.
2. A good therapist. Her ability to see, her willingness to help, her wisdom and compassion. It doesn’t hurt that we are a lot alike so she’s able to help me both laugh at myself and see my worth more clearly.
Bonus joy: Tiny beautiful things and good friends that make it easier to not give up.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 