Dani Shapiro | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Good stuff on Medium: Why Starting a “Blog” is a Terrible Idea, and When you work for yourself: stop doing shit you don’t like, and Starbucks Wants To Talk To You About Race, and Lighten Up.

2. Good stuff from Dances with Fat: If Not Weight Loss, Then What? and Willful Suspension of Disbelief.

3. Things That Make Me Happy on A Design So Vast.

4. Don’t Create Content. Move People. from Jonathan Fields.

5. Truthbomb from Danielle LaPorte: “Think of suffering as self-compassion school.”

6. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been kind of obsessed with any conversation around race and racism lately. Here are some thought provoking articles on the subject, if you are also interested: After an Uneasy Start, Finding Common Ground to Discuss Race Relations at Work, and 10 things black people fear that white people simply don’t, and Why Kimmy Schmidt’s Native Subplot is Great: A Native Fan’s Opinion, and Being White Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry: How the Oklahoma frat scandal exposes a racial double standard, and Portland gentrification video: ‘This is painful, but we can do something,’ and this video,

7. Good stuff about writing from Terrible Minds: The Flipside Of My Writing Tirade, and In Which I Emit A Lot Of Grr-Talk About Your Writing Career, and Writing Is A Profane, Irrational, Imperfect Act.

8. I’m also kind of obsessed with the conversation around fattism, fat shaming, Health at Every Size, and such. Here are some good articles on the topic, if you are also interested: the weight of this body, and Virgie Tovar on eradicating diet culture, the joy of moving your body, and Babecamp 2015, and Grieving the Loss of Your Body Fantasy, and What Happens If We Let Fat People Be Happy?

9. Just One Man Remains in Fukushima Radiation Zone – He’s Feeding All the Animals Left Behind.

10. The Girl’s Girl from Brittany, Herself.

11. 40 Guilty Cats Who Deserve To Be Shamed Publicly, but probably don’t care because, well, they are cats.

12. Meg Worden, podcast goddess: Ask the Aunties Episode 1: ‘I am a 35 year old virgin’ and Raise your Hand Say Yes with Meg Worden.

13. If Vegans Said Things Meat Eaters Say.

14. StoryCorps Wins The TED Prize And Builds An App That Lets Anyone Record An Interview On Their Phone.

15. Nurse helps sexual assault survivors heal, move on.

16. Sex Tips That Don’t Suck, a poem performed.

17. Tweet, Memory, Dani Shapiro remembering Lisa Bonechek Adams.

18. Leon Bridges, such a beautiful voice. I can’t wait for his full album. The style of what I’ve heard so far reminds me of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black.

19. A Group Of People Read The Last Texts From Their Exes And It’s Hilarious.

20. The Pitfalls of Pursuing Your Purpose by Adreanna Limbach.

21. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: On Awakening Through Race, Sexuality, and Gender, and Dig into 3 recipes from vegan chef Bryant Terry.

22. Side-By-Side Photos Of What Rich And Poor Eat Reveal ‘Glaring Disparities’ Worldwide.

23. The difference between commitment and technique from Seth Godin.

24. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Even after many years, many of us continue to practice harshly. We practice with guilt, as if we’re going to be excommunicated if we don’t do it right. We practice so we won’t be ashamed of ourselves and with fear that someone will discover what a “bad” meditator we really are. The old joke is that a Buddhist is someone who is either meditating or feeling guilty about not meditating. There’s not much joy in that.

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It’s such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we’re doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We’re letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint.

25. From Brave Girls Club:

Just like every amazing brave girl, your mind and heart are filled with lots and lots of ideas and dreams. Sometimes that puts us into a panic because we feel like we have to do it all right now, or that we will run out of time, or like the window of opportunity will close.

Please remember, friend, that there is a season for everything. You may find that when you ask your heart of hearts, that you can only focus on one big thing at a time if you are to do it in the beautiful, soulful way that you love to do things…and that other things may have to wait for now. You may find that you can juggle two or three special things, but that you will have to let some others things go to be able to make that happen. What you will most likely NOT find if you are very very soulfully honest with yourself and if you listen very very closely, is that you cannot do EVERYTHING you want to do at once…because sacred things will suffer…most especially YOU.

So please give yourself permission to put some things on a different timetable so that you can give the best of yourself to the things that are very most important in THIS season of your life. It does not make you weak or powerless when you let things go… On the contrary it shows your strength and commitment to all that is best for your own precious life.

26. Introducing April LOVE, 2015!, another great daily photo challenge from Susannah Conway.

27. Good stuff on Create as Folk: Contributor Welcome: Caren Baginski for Workday Wellness and Ever Feel Like a Nobody?

28. The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People: INFOGRAPHIC.

29. Surrealist Sculptures by Ellen Jewett Merge Plant and Animal Life.

30. Now that’s what I call an *acceptance* speech. Amazing job, Kerry Washington.

Mount McConnel Trail, image by Eric

1. Alina Baraz & Galimatias, who I’ve been listening to a lot lately.

2. Wisdom from Jessica Patterson, “If you’re only willing to scratch the surface, you will never satisfy the itch.”

3. A Whole Decade from Brittany Herself.

4. Good stuff on Tricycle: The Mindfulness Solution and Guided Meditation with Venerable Pannavati.

5. 9 Great Yoga YouTube Channels.

6. Medicating Women’s Feelings on The New York Times.

7. List of Emoticons for Facebook, something I use quite a bit.

8. Watch These Young Girls Recite Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman”… It’s Awesome.

9. Andrea Gibson performs The Nutritionist.

10. She Hasn’t Changed Her Home For 72 Years. When You See What’s Inside, Your Jaw Will Drop!

11. I love myself enough to do what it takes (to get well)- PART 1 of a series about adrenal fatigue, chronic hives, hormone imbalance, weight gain, emotional healing, etc. etc. etc. from Melody Ross of Brave Girls Club.

12. On Knowing Our Own Minds from Dani Shapiro. “Our most creative thoughts and ideas spring from a ritualized dream time. In the absence of this dream time we become mechanized, robotic, detached from our inner lives.” Word.

13. Fuck the lie that we can have it all from Renegade Mothering.

14. Something Wild from Sunni Chapman.

15. Tiny Beautiful Things on Call Me Ishmael.

16. Things Black Men Are Tired Of Hearing.

17. Douglas Adams made me a writer: Neil Gaiman salutes his friend and inspiration.

18. Kindness Blog, “Kindness Images, Videos, True Life Stories, Quotes, Personal Reflections and Meditations. Because Kindness Changes Everything.”

19. Wisdom from the 17th Karmapa,

Sometimes when we practice dharma we think that we need to show some sort of external or physical sign of it. We pay a lot of attention to the rituals and these actions of our body and speech. This is practicing dharma when we’re focusing outside. But instead what we need to do is turn our attention inwards. We need to see whether what we’re doing is functioning as an antidote to the afflictions or not. We need to see whether we are taming our mind or not. We need to see whether our mind is improving, getting kinder, or not. If we don’t look at it in this way then there’s no benefit to doing these actions – we think that we are trying to do the dharma, but actually we are just making a show with our body and speech. We are putting on appearances, and that’s all we really take an interest in. And the moment that happens, this becomes spiritual materialism.

20. Good stuff on Medium: A world without advice, and Cabin Fever (P.S. I’ve seen the documentary mentioned at least four times), and I Know the Rules- I Just Don’t Care, and Parenting Advice: Don’t Kill Them.

21. Wisdom Pema Chödrön, from her book The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World,

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.

22. Their Dying Wishes on The New York Times.

23. You Will Survive from Jack Kornfield.

24. I Eat in the Light Now from Curvy Yoga.

25. A World Gone Mad from Rachel Cole.

26. #continuouspractice – A month and a half in {with a message} from Visible and Real.

27. chocolate chocolate-chip cake, redux: the gluten-free edition on Chookooloonks.

28. UC Berkeley Students Hold Teach-In for Their Racist Professor.

29. Jessamyn Stanley talks about life, yoga as therapy, and internet love and hate on Body Positive Yoga.

30. An Open Letter to Kid Rock About the Word ‘Gay’ on Esquire.