Tag Archives: Jennifer Louden

Something Good

1. Rueben Is Just Right, a sweet rescue story.

2. This quote: Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
~Zora Neale Hurston

3. My 3 Fave Ways to Celebrate in under 10 Minutes by Sherry Richert Belul on Cherry Blossom Soup. And also from Sherry, The NEW Black Friday: Make Love Lists Not Shopping Lists!

4. A Dog’s Lessons on Mindfulness on Positively Present.

5. Two from Justine Musk, You Were Born to Be a Badass in which she says “But the first step, as Greene points out, is inward: a turning away from the voices that urge conformity, toward the truth of who you are at core,” and How to Start Creating Your Blog Community, which really has me thinking about what great work we could do together, kind and gentle reader.

6. Some Thoughts and Musings about Making Things for the Web from the Oatmeal.

7. This Black Friday video from The Story of Stuff should explain why I’ll be staying home.

8. Least Likely to be Adopted Dog Pound Portraits, so good that they were all adopted.

9. Jive at the Age of 2, this kid has mad skills.

10. Las Palmas the movie is finally available, only $1.99 to download.

11. The Wonder of Thresholds from Jen Louden, with the extra special bonus of an audio chat with Rachel Cole.

12. The Soul-Shaking Practice of Surrender by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Anybody remember a something good list that didn’t have something from Courtney on it?! Yeah, me neither.

13. Get Campie, online vintage camper parade.

14. Judy Clement Wall’s new site is done!!!!!! More doodles, even more love! Reason #115 why I love her.

15. Be More by Doing Less: Removing the Distraction of Busyness and When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed: Create a To-Live List on Tiny Buddha.

16. Wicked Awesome Quotes, a new site from Cigdem Kobu. I pretty much love everything she does, because she’s completely amazing.

17. And yet, the morning comes, the most amazing post from Lisa Bonchek Adams, who recently discovered her breast cancer was back, had metastasized. She ends this post with “I’m still processing. Reeling. But while I’m doing that I’m living.” She is so amazing.

18. This quote from Tulku Thondup:

For healing, it is important to have inspiration. A hopeful and inspired feeling generates enthusiasm, trust, and openness and makes it easier for us to meditate. However, we should not obsess about the meditation experience or have rigid expectations about what should happen. Grasping after results will only become a tourniquet that tightens our mental and physical energies.

19. This quote from Tara Brach, her new book True Refuge:

In the Buddhist teachings, the conscious recognition of our heart’s deepest longing is called wise aspiration. Yours might be for spiritual realization, for loving more fully, for knowing truth, for finding peace. Whatever its flavor, the awareness of what you care about energizes and guides your practice.

20. SoulPancake: Find Peace in the Zen Den. I love the looks on these people’s faces as they step inside, and the woman who says “I’m not finished yet. I can keep going.”

21. Eleanor Roosevelt on Happiness, Conformity, and Integrity on Brain Pickings. My favorite part is this:

Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: “A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.”

But there is another basic requirement, and I can’t understand now how I forgot it at the time: that is the feeling that you are, in some way, useful. Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive. And it is its own reward, as well, for it is the beginning of happiness, just as self-pity and withdrawal from the battle are the beginning of misery.

22. Cupcakes for control—A healthy strategy for weight management, from Drop It and Eat: Drop the Diet, Manage Your Weight. This makes so much sense to me.

23. This:

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

24. Don’t Wait from Julia on Painted Path. If you have it to spare, send sweet Julia some love and comfort.

25. I’ve started telling my daughters I’m beautiful. Even those of us who aren’t moms should start doing this, start believing this, for the daughters of the world, for ourselves.

26. This quote, from Cheri Huber:

Those of us who have the awareness, the sensitivity, the great privilege–all the things necessary to awaken and end suffering in this lifetime–need to take that opportunity very, very seriously. As the Buddha pointed out, we never know when such an opportunity will arise again.

27. Stay in the Moment with the TAP Method by Dani, the author of the Positively Present blog.

Something Good

1. 40 Things To Say Before You Die, which I first read about on Judy Clement Wall’s blog Zebra Sounds. Everything I share on my something good list is here because it’s, well, something good, but this is one of the best. I seriously am going to write these out on index cards and start carrying them around with me, and when I don’t know what to say, I’m going to flip through them until I find the right one, or pick a random one and trust the magic.

2. Saying Goodbye to Bingo: A Life Lesson in Letting Go of Life.

3. A Woman of Wholeness from Jennifer Louden. I especially love the opening lines:

Somewhere there is a room
made of bee’s wax and heart honey
and the sound that is left after the meditation gong has gone still

In it sits the woman you actually are

4. This quote from Herman Hesse, so comforting and wise:

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation, and a single happiness and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it … It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.

5. This quote from Parker J. Palmer: “I will always have fear, but I need not be my fears, for I have other places in my inner landscape from which to speak and act.”

6. Transformation Talk with Erica Staab + book giveaway. If you’ve been reading these lists for long, you know how much I love blogger Erica Staab. This video was the first time I got to see her “in person,” to hear her wisdom, her story in her own voice. Loved it.

7. Vulnerability, Daring Greatly and Stretching by Erica Staab. Another reason to love her.

8. I’m in Here, Can Anybody See Me? by Amy Ippoliti on Elephant Journal. Simple, short, and so true.

9. I preordered a copy of Marisa Anne’s new book, Creative Thursday – Everyday Inspiration to Grow Your Creative Practice.

10. This poem, shared on Carry It Forward, and from the beginning of Pema Chödrön’s new book, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, (which arrived in my mailbox this week–yay!).

Living is a form of not being sure,
not knowing what next or how.
The moment you know how
you begin to die a little.
The artist never entirely knows.
We guess.
We may be wrong,
but we take leap after leap
in the dark.
~ Agnes de Mille ~

11. You’re going to hurt someone by Danielle LaPorte.

12. 10 Sheds/Cabins- Would You Live In These? on Relax Shacks. I might not live in them, but I sure want to play in them.

13. This, from my Inner Pilot Light (by way of the Daily Flame), made me cry.

You can’t see it now, but just around the corner of what’s hurting you now is what will arise to meet you and help you make room for what is next. In order to enjoy the blessing of this precious gift, you must endure the hurt you feel right now. Please, my dear, trust the journey. Wait ’til you see what I see in your future…

14. This quote, from John Irving: If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

15. You Have Permission (Right NOW!) from Leonie, complete with a free podcast reading.

16. From The Jump, a poem by Maya Stein on bentlily.

The language for courage is so stripped of words, a lump
of a secret only the heart knows the translation to. And yet, unsure
as we are, we recognize the call from down below, and find the edge and leap
even when we don’t. Once we wake up, we can never fall asleep.

17. Who Gave You Permission? a poem by Marianne Elliott, also on bentlily.