Life is Limitless | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

image by Eric

1. BROKEN SAVIORS: Alien Invasion Comic Book Kickstarter project. 12 days to go, and so close.

2. 3 Ways to Make Your Life Simple and Successful Again from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

3. May my suffering be of service from Danielle LaPorte.

4. A series of guest posts about courage hosted by Marianne Elliott.

5. Does Intuitive Eating mean eating whatever and whenever you feel like it? ~Guest post by Terri Barger on Eat to Love.

6. Listening to your Life from Rachel Cole.

7. The Limitless Living Course from Caroline Leon. FREE.

8. When Others Frustrate You and A Simple, Powerful Self-Compassion Method from Zen Habits.

9. Heart-opener from Guinevere Gets Sober.

10. The Just F*cking Journal Class: April 20-24, 2015 from Jamie Greenwood. FREE.

11. RAIN by Teah Strozer on Tricycle, which says,

Getting started on a spiritual path takes guts. We usually don’t know it in the beginning, but if we keep going on it — if we really want to know the truth of what it means to be human or if we are deeply finished with our suffering — we will learn that walking the path of freedom takes a humble courage. It also takes determination, humor, a balanced effort, and the willingness to feel, directly in our body, the suffering brought by attachment to our conditioned thoughts, which create separation, dis-ease, and the greed and aversion we usually use to seek happiness. But the promise is real. We can be free of suffering; we can know our wide-awake mind and the open heart that goes with it.

12. Why I Seldom Teach The Hero’s Journey Anymore — And What I Teach Instead.

13. The “Food Babe” Blogger Is Full of Shit. And in related news, The “Food Babe” Strikes Back At Her Critics.

14. Grief is the Price We Pay for Love.

15. How BMI affects emotional eating from Isabel Foxen Duke.

16. Perpetual Potential Thin Person from Dances with Fat.

17. Blue Mood on SF Girl by Bay.

18. Devotion to myself? on The Art of Wildness.

19. 3 selfies shared by Chris Rock are just one more way he’s demonstrating racism still exists.

20. This family is ‘blissfully enjoying life on the slow road, with no end in sight.’

21. Good stuff on Bored Panda: Mom Captures Powerful Photos Of Her Fearless Daughters To Show That ‘Strong Is The New Pretty’ and Incredible Miniature Paintings Of Galaxies, Animals And Books By Lorraine Loots.

22. The psychology of mean bosses is so fascinating you’ll wish this 2-minute video was 20 minutes long.

23. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Many of our escapes are involuntary: addiction and dissociating from painful feelings are two examples. Anyone who has worked with a strong addiction—compulsive eating, compulsive sex, abuse of substances, explosive anger, or any other behavior that’s out of control—knows that when the urge comes on it’s irresistible. The seduction is too strong. So we train again and again in less highly charged situations in which the urge is present but not so overwhelming. By training with everyday irritations, we develop the knack of refraining when the going gets rough. It takes patience and an understanding of how we’re hurting ourselves not to continue taking the same old escape route of speaking or acting out.

24. 20 Great Writers on Motivating Yourself To Write, No Matter What.

25. 4 Myths About Police Brutality We Need To Stop Spreading Right Now.

26. Louis CK’s impression of Jimmy Fallon = the best thing ever. In related news, 4 years ago, Louis C.K. went on ‘Conan’ and told a story that explains why we love him.

27. I love big book news and I cannot lie! from Brene’ Brown.

28. for love of liberation on Lists and Letters.

29. Beware of Tribal Shame! from Elizabeth Gilbert on Facebook.

30. Shared on Susannah’s Something for the Weekend list: 10 Success Secrets of the Highly-Creative, and 7 Reasons Your Wife Is Stressed Out All the Time, and The rise of the death doula.

31. This Woman Was Reunited With A Gorilla After 12 Years. What Happened Next Will Tear Your Heart Out.

32. Body Talk. (Thanks to Rachel for sharing).

33. Advice From Former Racist: ‘If You Hear Something Racist, F–king Stand Up and Take Responsibility.’ I can’t stop thinking about this video. Such wisdom from a completely unexpected place.

34. The Floor In His Apartment Is Covered In Bread. When I Saw Why? I Was Choking Back Tears.

35. “In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions…” on Elephant Journal. It’s from a few years ago now, but it always makes me stop and think.

Every year, just after Thanksgiving, someone sneaks into the park where we walk our dogs and decorates three trees that stand next to the trail. This is the little Charlie Brown one.

1. Creative Living with Jamie has been named one of the Top 25 Business Podcasts for Entrepeneurs by Entrepreneur magazine! It’s really good. One of my favorite moments from the past year is when she interviewed me.

2. “It’s not about “giving up” control…”, wisdom from Isabel Foxen Duke.

3. Good stuff from Bored Panda: I Draw Pet Illustrations Based On Their Personalities, and This 5-Year-Old Girl Sneaked A Baby Cow Into Her Home To Cuddle With It, and 24+ Beautiful Ice And Snow Formations That Look Like Art.

4. True Stories Series: Maya Stein on 27 Powers.

5. Dear Woman on the Cusp from Rachel Cole. Her new offering, Feast, is so perfect for me that it feels like she created it just for me, but luckily for you, you can come along too if you’d like.

6. Life Was Perfect When Her Son Was Born. 14 Weeks Later, Everything Changed, on the importance of gratitude.

7. Wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert on Facebook. And also from Liz, Karaoke wisdom.

8. Truthbomb #680 from Danielle LaPorte, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

9. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club,

We ache and bleed and suffer when we wish things were different than they are…and we don’t even realize that the thing that is really keeping us from healing is that we are simply not accepting things as they are, but we are still wishing things had happened differently, or not happened at all.

And this,

You will come across things in your life that just feel wrong, things that make you feel heavy or confused or wobbly or sideways. Something deep inside you will feel unsettled and you will know that you want to move away from that thing or that situation or even that person … Be willing to walk away from things that feel wrong.

10. A Note from the Universe, (I want to believe this so badly…)

Jill, if, way down deep, you can even slightly comprehend that time is an illusion and that space is just a stage, then it shouldn’t take much of a leap to realize how safe you are, how much magic there is, and most importantly, that there must exist a super-consciousness with wishes and dreams all its own, that include you.

11. Wisdom from Geneen Roth:

Ask yourself if what you are telling yourself is true. Is it true that your body is ugly? Don’t answer so fast! (I heard you!) Ask yourself to what and whom you are comparing yourself? To a younger version of yourself? To a 20-year-old or an actress who works out three hours a day? Your body is the piece of the universe you’ve been given, the place where love and joy and grief happen, where happiness unfolds. Do you really want to keep believing that it’s a horrible, ugly, lumpy thing? Do you really want to keep punching yourself like that? (Call me psychic, but I have a feeling that the answer is no.)

When you stop telling yourself stories about your body, about your eating, about your life, you stop having to eat to fix how awful you feel because you stop feeling awful. Then and only then can you actually figure out what is really true. What you really want. What you really feel. What you really believe.

Ask yourself what would happen if you stopped the incessant chatter about how lumpy or stretchy or ugly your body is. What would happen if, instead, you thanked your body for taking you this far. For schlepping packages and bearing children and making love. Then listen to it carefully to see what it needs.

12. The myth of finding your purpose, from Kris Carr. It’s an older post but one of the most important, still.

13. 50 Lessons From A Decade of Blogging from Leonie Dawson.

14. Let’s make some magic in 2015! Susannah Conway’s Unravelling the Year Ahead 2015 workbook (FREE), one of the practices I gift myself during this busy time of year. She’s also offering a FREE 5-day email class to help you figure out your word for 2015, Find Your Word.

15. This Blog is Going to Embarrass my Husband.

16. 5 Tips For Being An Ally from Chescaleigh.

17. The Eric Garner Grand Jury Decision and We Can’t Breathe from The Daily Show.

18. Wisdom from Ethan Nichtern,

It was wonderful to be among many thousands at the rally last night, even under such brutal and tragic circumstance. Right now it feels like my practice is all about awareness: increasing my own awareness of the people in this world who I habitually ignore or fail to see. We each have massive blind spots, and the first step in transformation is accepting that we live in a world where so many people remain unseen and unheard, and simply developing the courage to look. May all people feel seen, heard, and valued.

19. Anne Lamott discusses grief and forgiveness in Small Victories on Booktrib.

20. this was a good week? from Chookooloonks.

21. Little Humans Reading Little Humans.

21. Pine Ridge Holiday Project. “There is still time to provide a little holiday cheer to the people of Pine Ridge. We have plenty of names of elementary and junior high aged children. You can also send donations for firewood to be delivered to families and elders to help keep them warm and toasty. Please email forpineridge@gmail.com and let me know if you prefer to provide simple gifts for children or if you would like to make a donation for firewood. Thank you for your kindness and generosity! Chris and Julie.”

22. In related news: “Please consider donating $110.00 for a cord of fire wood for a family on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It is already freezing up there. A small group of Lakota gentlemen cut, deliver and stack the wood…so this provides income for the wood cutters as well as warmth for a family. Here is the link to Village Earth to donate firewood (tax deductible).”

23. 10 Habits of Happy, Healthy Couples from Marc and Angel Hack Life.

24. How to Change Your Life in Just 2 Minutes a Day: 10 Quick Habits from the Positivity Blog.

25. 5 Questions to Simplify Your Life During the Holidays from Zen Habits. Why limit it to the holidays? We should be asking ourselves these questions all year, the rest of our lives.

26. The Last 5 Most Frustrating Things about Simplicity from Be More with Less.

27. Good stuff from Austin Kleon: Most Questions Can Be Boiled Down To (this brilliant image is from this post), and Interview with Reading Lives, and Video of my Show Your Work! chalktalk, and a link he shared to this amazing quote, Murdering A Book.

28. Six Causes of Procrastination And How to Overcome Them on Life is Limitless.

29. Shared on Positively Present Picks: 36 Prompts to Help You Plan an Awesome 2015.

30. A Lesbian Takes Her Niece To Meet A Princess, Is Mistaken For Her Dad, And…, another great TEDX Boulder talk from Ash Beckham.

31. Why Fat-Shaming By Doctors Really, Really Matters from xojane. Reading through the tweets tagged #diagnosisfat makes me so angry, so sad.

32. This Toddler’s Killer Dubstep Dance Moves Will Even Blow Skrillex Away. I am so in love with this little guy.

33. What’s next?, a set of really great prompts from Seth Godin.