Tag Archives: Encouragement

Something Good

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It’s Monday again, and I don’t know about you, but I am ready to hear something good.  Here’s this week’s list.

After being sick all weekend, I appreciate being able to eat, do laundry, stand long enough to take a shower, do yoga (a headstand even!), walk the dogs, write, read.  I was even grateful to go to work today.

My Christmas Cactus, given to me by my dear friend Sandy, is blooming.

My favorite recent quote: “It doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years — we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.” ~Sharon Salzberg, (via a Kind Over Matter post).  This is such good news!  It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been stuck, how long I have been stuck, once we/I open up to the love and happiness and joy and gratitude and wisdom of this moment, once we open our hearts and take that first small step and turn on the light, it is/we are illuminated.

My friend and dog trainer extraordinaire Sarah Stremming shared a memory of my Obi on her blog, how he used to hug her every time he saw her. I loved being reminded of that.  I am also inspired by Sarah’s recent decision to quit her full time job to pursue her dog training business, her passion, The Cognitive Canine.

heART Exchange Art Swap, hosted by the new web project “your heART makes a difference,” started by Louise Gale.  The mission of the project is to “raise the consciousness of the world, one by one through practicing self-care, love, kindness, forgiveness & gratitude through creative expression.”  The heART Exchange matches two people (my match is living in Belgium), and “is a global art swap to create, share & receive LOVE in the form of a gorgeous piece of artwork. Each person who joins the swap is given a partner to send their creation to and the only rule, is that you create with your heart energy and include a positive note for the recipient inside.”  Here’s a sneak peak of my project, inspired by Tibetan prayer flags, which I’ll blog about when I finish.

“It’s You,” a new post at Tiny Buddha. “The one you’ve been waiting for to give you permission—it’s you. You’re the only one who can decide whether you’ll try or hold yourself back.” Go read the rest.  It’s good, and it’s true: it’s you.

I finally confirmed a date with Rachel W. Cole to come to Fort Collins, Colorado and give a “Well-Fed Woman mini-retreatshop.” Sunday, February 19th, 12:30-3:30 pm at Om Ananda Yoga Studio.  Rachel lives in California, and is a soulful, warm, and creative life coach who’s on a mission to guide women towards feeds their deeper hungers so they can live their most well-fed lives. Who this mini-retreatshop is for, (besides me)? “Women who sense they have more greatness to birth but know before they can soar they need to sit in stillness. Women who crave sinking deeper. Women who know the power of women sitting with other women. Women who desire to trust their own hungers more. Women who want to explore their relationship to themselves. And of course, women who experience a little endorphin rush when they hear there will be meaningfully-applied glitter.” Seriously, this is going to be amazing! She hasn’t opened registration yet, (space for 20 women), but I will let you know as soon as she does and post more details later.

That’s so much good, I feel a bit dizzy.  Remember when Monday’s used to be boring? Okay, just one more thing, and then it’s your turn to tell me something good.

How cute is that?!

Fill Your Journey with Joy!

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I took Thursday off from blogging, planning to make a post on Friday morning.  But then, on Friday, I left the house at 6:30 am and didn’t come back until 9:30 pm.  I slept fitfully that night, and woke up Saturday with a fever and upset stomach.  I spent the first half of the day in bed, then moved to the couch to sleep for the afternoon, and at some point in the evening, watched a bit of Grey’s Anatomy Season Two that I got from the library last week, even though it seemed a bit too bright and loud.  Because I couldn’t keep anything down all day, I was also going through an unplanned caffeine detox.

Photo by Rachel Titiriga

I feel better today, weak and hollowed out, but better. Along with eating, I couldn’t write or read yesterday.  It was hard to take a whole weekend day “off” when I hadn’t gotten any of my own work done on Thursday or Friday either.  Not only had I missed blogging, but I am again a full week behind in my Ordinary Courage class, with only one week left, laundry needs done, and the pile of receipts and bills on my desk remind me that I still haven’t balanced the checkbook this month.

There isn’t enough time. Whenever my nieces complain that they are bored or I hear other people talk about how they don’t want to retire because “what would I do all day?,” I grit my teeth and want to scream.  There is so much I want to do, and I want to do it all, NOW.  Which, in part, is why I ended up sick. It starts with my inability to pace myself. I push because there is so much I want, and I don’t listen to myself or pay attention to what I need, don’t care for myself when I am doing too much.

And right now, the situation is more intense. I am trying to maintain a full work life–you know, they call it “full time” for a reason.  If you have such a job, it takes up all of your time.  You are either working it directly or preparing for it or cleaning up after it or resting up from/for it.  Yes, you might have evenings and weekends away, but I find that those are spent in recovery or preparation. Making sure we have clean clothes and groceries, the dogs are cared for, we aren’t defaulting on our bills, and we see our family and friends enough that they’ll remember what we look like is all I can manage on my “time off.” Add to that my my life-rehab, and my desire for a full creative life.  How is this ever going to work?

When my book group met with author Laura Resau on Friday night, it was one of the questions I asked her.  She’d been an academic, a graduate student and teacher, who eventually quit to write full time.  A few other people in my group are writers, one of them who has published multiple books but maintains a “day job.”  I asked Laura what the tipping point was for her, when she gave up the other paid work to write for a living/life.  It’s not so important how she answered the specific question, when that was for her or why, but rather that in answering, she reinforced that you take the steps, no matter how small, you start and keep going, keep showing up, and maintain that faith and trust, that deep knowing, that this is what you want, what you should do, that it is right and true.

Wings I noticed a shift in myself as a writer with my question to her.  As a more immature practitioner, if I had the opportunity to ask, the questions were always about “How do I get published?” Now I want to know, “How do you give yourself permission to write, to be a writer full time?” Maybe for other writers, the question really is how to publish.  For me, it’s about a whole life. It’s not just that I need to write and submit, but that I need to learn how to live, and the writing is part of the process.  I can share during, and then when I figure out some stuff, I can polish and publish it, share it with others who need the encouragement and resources.

Laura signed my copy of her book, The Queen of Water, “Fill your writing journey with joy!”  Today, feeling weak, hollowed out, and tired, with so much to catch up on and do, I am hopeful, committed to showing up, but also learning to pace myself, learning to live full time, with joy, and sharing the process.

Picture by Erik Sagen