Tag Archives: Encouragement

Thank You and Amen, Day Two

1 Reply

I am grateful for so much right now that I almost can’t be reasonable. It’s just that there is so much good stuff, and when you start actively looking for it, it seems to multiply, and suddenly there is so much good, you can’t get your brain around it, there aren’t enough words or enough time to ever be able to explain. There is enough joy though, and enough love. Seriously, you’ve got to get in on this. There is so much extra, and I’d hate to see it go to waste, for you to miss out.

I am grateful for my students. “If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” ― Pema Chödrön It is that point in the semester when my students are feeling tired and overwhelmed, just when their classes are asking the most of them, demanding that now they ramp things up, really show what they’ve learned.  I got an email from one of them last night with the subject line “jiiiiiiillllll hellpppp.” Through it all, they make me laugh, allow me to help and support them, don’t act like complete jerks, and let me have my own mistakes without making too big of a deal about it.  We are all struggling, none of us can keep up, but that’s okay.  I think we are managing to learn something anyway.

Picture by Christopher Sessums


I am grateful for Pema Chödrön. She was the teacher that provided my way in to the Buddhist study and practice that have helped me so much in recent years. And you don’t have to be a Buddhist to learn from her, (technically, I am not a Buddhist). She is amazing: funny, wise, compassionate, and kind. She wants all of us to simply make friends with ourselves, to relax and not take things so seriously, to sit with what is instead of running away or getting angry or numbing out (or all the other ways we try to resist who we are and what is), and has made it her life’s work to see that manifest in the world.  She is precious, and teaches us to see that we are too.

I am grateful for the Metta Drum blog.  Right now, especially these two posts: “Your Openness is Your Gift” and “The Truth of Loving Yourself.”

Why yes, that is me as a baby.

I am grateful for the chance to rest, for the choice to rest. I am still struggling with this.  There is so much work to be done, so much to write about, so much to study, so much to read, so much to taste and feel and see and talk about and love…I am not good at knowing when to slow down, or when to quit.  But I know I can, and I am trying to do better.

I am grateful for you, dear reader.To know that you are “there,” listening, allowing me to be heard and seen, is such a gift.  Even when I am not getting direct feedback from you, I can feel the kindness, and it gives me the strength to take another risk.  And when I do get direct feedback from you, it is so filled with love and generosity and knowing and empathy, I am filled with gratitude and joy.

May you be peaceful.
May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you awaken to the light of your true nature.
May you be free.

Three Truths and One Wish

Leave a reply

1. Truth: You are enough and there is enough for you. Just as you are, you are basically good and wise, you are whole.  Even if you do nothing but breathe, you are worthy of love, space, belonging. You may suffer from poverty mentality, that deep belief that there will never be enough, that you have to cling to and hoard what you have, but it isn’t real.  There is enough, enough to share even.  There is no need to compare or compete.  Let go, give it all away.  Open your heart, give and receive, knowing that you are enough and there is enough.

Photo by Ganesha Balunsat

2. Truth: Gratitude brings joy, and when you are creative, you are happy. Andrea Scher on Superhero Journal posted today on her blog about gratitude, and said “I think practicing gratitude is one of the most powerful things we can do. It gives us power and joy.”  On Tiny Buddha, there’s also a recent post on gratitude’s connection to joy, “There’s More Right Than Wrong.”

I was thinking about this while I was walking the dogs this morning.  The facts of the morning were: I was tired and it was early, dark, and cold.  One way to experience that is to get grumpy, cranky, irritated, and hateful.  Another option is to recognize how utterly amazing it is to see the moon and stars, and then the sunrise, all in a single hour. To be aware of how the cold and movement wake me up, and how nice it is to be out alone in all that quiet and space. To understand how lucky I am that I can get up, that I can move, that I have these two amazing dogs that want to go with me, who will protect me from anything out there that might be scary, (all there was this morning was a fox and an owl, so nothing too bad).

And there’s the happiness that comes from creating, any active process in which you give of yourself, your love or wisdom or kindness.  That act of offering, the action and attention, returns to you as much as you ever give away. It feeds the deepest, hungriest part of you.

Photo by Mara

3. Truth: Right now, in this moment, there is no problem, everything is okay.  Ask yourself, in this moment, right now: is there a problem? I guarantee that anything you can come up with isn’t about this moment, but rather is attached to the past or the future–I have tried this many times, and I can never come up with any problem that is attached to right now that I don’t know exactly how to handle, to render it “no problem.” Everything else is completely workable. In Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now” he says “To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.”

Photo by On Being

  • Wish: I wish that we could all internalize and manifest these truths. That we would understand joy and experience happiness in this present moment, now. “Decide today that you are enough, even if you never do anything, accomplish anything or produce anything ever again. You are enough.”

  • Your turn.  Make a wish.