Tag Archives: Carry it Forward

Something Good

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we have tomatoes!

In putting together today’s list, I am going back through about 150+ old emails that have accumulated over the past month to find the good stuff I can share. The good news for me is that by the end, I’ll have caught up with my email, for about five minutes…
 
1. This quote from Pema Chödrön: “When we practice meditation we are strengthening our ability to be steadfast with ourselves. No matter what comes up – aching bones, boredom, falling asleep, or the wildest thoughts and emotions – we develop a loyalty to our experience.” The month we were gone, I relaxed my meditation practice, wasn’t sitting as often as I typically do (I try to maintain a daily practice, even if all I can do is ten minutes). Now that we are back home in Colorado, I am trying to get back into my normal routine, and quotes like this help, reinforcing my intention, my reason for practice: to develop a loyalty to my experience, to myself.

2. In related good news, this quote from Susan Piver: “your meditation practice is the most helpful tool there is for finding your own voice. As you relax with yourself exactly as you are, insights arise and observations occur. You see how your mind works, what makes it open and what causes it to shut down. There is nothing you have to do to accrue such observations–except to sit, slow down, and look yourself–this precious, wonderful, brilliant, one-of-a-kind being–right in the eye.” This was from an email through the Open Heart Project, Practitioner level, which is also, with love and wisdom, helping me reestablish my daily practice.

3. The $100 Investment: How One Person Really Can Change the World by Lissa Rankin. I am still trying to decide what to do with the $100 I got at the World Domination Summit, and am loving hearing other people’s ideas.

4. When The Fires Came For Us by Laura Pritchett. Local author’s personal story about the High Park Fire.

5. Start small, but start from Patti Digh at 37Days. Such loving wisdom. Spot on. Her Thinking Thursday post this past week was also packed full of amazingness.

6. Anne Lamott has a new book coming out!

7. The Next Right Action on Scoutie Girl. More wisdom about getting moving, “you don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward.”

8. “What is saving your life right now?” I am in love with this question, which I found by way of Lindsey on A Design So Vast, who was sharing something from a post on Saray Bessey’s blog.

9. Two good posts from Life is Limitless: Be honest, be true, be you and What writing can reveal.

10. Maira Kalman on Identity, Happiness, and Existence on Brain Pickings.

11. Shedding a Little Light on Carry It Forward. Especially this part:

It’s easier, of course, to hate. So much easier. And as we are human beings living in a fast paced, stress filled world, easier often wins.

Bringing love and light to the world is hard work. It involves courage, bravery, and standing on your own two feet. Not easy.

And yet? In the end, it’s what will lead us out.

Amen.

12. 3 Bear Cubs Rescued from Dumpster. You most likely already saw this, but just in case, I don’t want you to miss it.

13. Okay, confession time: I only made it through about 50 emails, but I need to be done now, can’t do this any longer (it is lunch time and there are dogs to be walked, week old unpacking that still needs done, along with some organizing and purging), so I will leave you with this adorable picture of my friend Theresa’s dog, Mr. Wilson. Theresa is a pet groomer with a great little shop in Stayton, Oregon, and if you live in the area and need dog grooming, you should totally go there: D’-Tail Pet Grooming. She’s one of the few people I know that is as nuts about dogs as I am.

mr. wilson, “stuffed chair”

Something Good

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1. Before and after of a mess. I realize that this is really only something good for me, but I still wanted to share it.

before

after

2. Got my shirt! It fits and it makes me smile.

3. Peonies. I don’t know why, but I am obsessed with them right now. I am planting at least three or four bushes when we redo our front yard so I can have them on my writing desk the whole season.

4. Obi’s rose bloomed. I’m not sure what kind of rose bush this is, but the smell and color is intense, and each bud has about 1000 petals. It grows next to one of Obi’s favorite places in the yard, by the back fence in a spot where he could see both the front and the back.

In the last months that he was alive, every time a new bloom would burst, I’d wonder which would last longer, the rose or Obi. I took a picture of him next to that rosebush during those last nine months that ended up being the picture I posted on Facebook the morning he died. Maybe it’s because I’ve been spending so much time in the backyard lately, but I have been missing that boy like crazy.

5. I can no longer, another great post from Christa at Carry it Forward.

6. The (Fearless) Love Essays by Judy Clement Wall. They’re here, they’re here! I can’t wait to read my copy. And Judy so wants them read, she’s offering them at variable pricing ($7 suggested), so if you can’t pay, you can still download a copy–because that’s how she rolls!

7. An excerpt from Patti Digh’s Commencement Address at Guilford College:

Carol Sanders…writes… “Follow the idea that calls you. As you start on your own life’s passage, follow the idea that makes you wake in the morning without an alarm, that calls you to scribble ideas on napkins and scrap paper and to lose all sense of time, that makes your heart beat faster at every corner with the endless possibilities.”

Yes, please!

8. Cultivate Your Play Ethic by Hannah Kane on Scoutie Girl.

9. Becoming the Person You Were Meant to Be: Where to Start by Anne Lamott. One of my favorite quotes from this is “We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.” Amen.

10. The 3 Most Important Questions by Vishen Lakhiani. Holy crap, this is gooooood. Watch it, do the practice, do it now.

11. Summer Manifesto. I love this idea, want to write one–way better idea than my summer to-do list.

12. 27 DOs + DON’Ts for being a badass woman from Justine Musk. Listen to this woman, she’s a badass.

13. Call Your Girlfriend Robyn/Erato cover by Lennon & Maisy Stella. I loved the original version of this song, but I loooove these girls. They were on the Today Show, or some similar morning show performing this week. I want them to come to my house and sing me to sleep every night.

14. Infusing Play into Mundane Tasks from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits. I like the way he thinks.

15. Joan Didion on Self-Respect on Brain Pickings.

16. A Girl and Her Room: Portraits of Teenage Girls’ Inner Worlds Through Their Bedroom Interiors on Brain Pickings.

17. This quote 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.

Amen.

18. Good advice for those attending the World Domination Summit with me (and hundreds of other people) in July.

  • A Story of Yes, from Andrea Scher on Superhero Journal, posted last year but still relevant, (she’ll be presenting again this year).

19. Live the Questions: Jacqueline Novogratz’s Advice to Graduates. Another commencement speech, another post from Brain Pickings.

20. Rilke on Embracing Uncertainty and Living the Questions on Brain Pickings.  Sorry for yet another, but this site was on fire this week.

21. Message from your Inner Pilot Light: When you choose to numb out – whether you numb out with TV, sugar, alcohol, drugs, smoking, or busyness – you dim my light. When you’re brave enough to face the truth, you’ll feel me glowing in the center of your chest, warm, steady, increasing in strength. Are you willing to face the truth without numbing out? With me, you’re safe to face anything. I’m right here.

22. A special offer from Susannah Conway. You already know how much I love this book, this woman, and this is a really great offer from her. Class starts tomorrow, so there’s still time!

22. Telling True Stories with Laurie Wagner, class starts on June 18th. I took the first round of this class, and highly and wholeheartedly recommend it.

Bonus something good: As someone who lived this era (the 80s) and loves a good musical almost more than anything, if this movie works, it will be so friggin’ awesome!