This post started as a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.
1. Friends who will gently and lovingly tell you the truth about yourself. And who are willing to be vulnerable and share their own truth, and stick around for long, heartfelt conversations about what’s working and what isn’t, and to brainstorm what might ease some of the suffering, but also to remind me that it’s not that bad, that in fact it’s all pretty workable and some of it is even great.
2. Light. People may be taking down their holiday twinkly lights, but the candles on my meditation shrine make me feel that same quiet anticipation of good things.
3. Time away from my paid work. Some emails are starting to trickle in this week, but I’m mostly staying away. I need the break, the rest, to reset and restore, contemplate and plan. I feel much clearer about a lot of things and am grateful.
4. My Soul Mantra One Word necklace from Liz Lamoreux. I chose to use “free” instead of my full word for 2013, freedom, because I wanted the necklace to communicate the way I want to feel. I chose the open circle washer because, well, it’s open. And I went with a light green aventurine because I like the color, it reminds me of beach glass, and because this gemstone represents opportunity and luck. It is said to increase perception and creative insight, and it is a heart chakra stone.
5. This idea, #15 on the list, “Turn Your Hangers to Find Out What You Really Wear.” I am totally doing it. I’ve heard of a similar idea before (put all your stuff on black hangers, and after you wear something, put it back in the closet on a white hanger, and anything still on a black hanger after six months, get rid of because you aren’t wearing it), but had never done it because it was a tad more complicated and sort of wasteful (I’d have to buy a whole new set of hangers)–but this version is SO simple. I want clothes that look and feel good, are functional and high quality and beautiful, and that’s not at all what is in my closet right now. Let the great purge begin!
Bonus Joy: While a tiny part of it was a bit rough, we had another week with Dexter. Here’s a picture of him this morning. I was at my desk writing and he was underneath chewing on his Little D, his favorite toy. Little D has beans in his feet, and Dexter likes to crunch them (I think some ancient and wild part of him thinks they are real bones).
Considering Old Habits With New Eyes: It always amazes me how quickly we develop habitual routines. In some ways, it makes sense. Day to day life is filled with a plethora of executive decisions: what to eat; what to wear; what to read, listen to, or watch; how to spend our time, money and energy, prioritizing tasks at work or at home. Routines can free us up to focus on bigger or deeper questions. And, once we’ve found something that works for us- whether it’s a daily meditation or nap (and I admit one sometimes leads to the other)- a routine helps us establish and maintain these practices.
Of course, the strength of routines is also a weakness: habits aren’t decided from present-moment awareness. This of course, side-steps the but-I-don’t-feel-like. . .(exercising, writing, meditating, eating vegetables etc.) pitfall of resisting what we know generally supports our body, mind, and spirit. But it also side-steps considerations of how things may have changed and what our or others’ present-moment needs really are. And, of course, the ease of perpetuating habits is as true of those that are not good for us as they are for those that are beneficial.
4. How To Make Next Year Your Best Year Yet, a vision board practice from Liv Lane. I’ve been collecting images, will hopefully find a moment to put mine together tomorrow.
6. A Danielle LaPorte TruthBombs: “We all require heaping doses of tenderness whether we realize it or not,” and “Leave room for mystery. It doesn’t all need to make sense.”
7. Anxiety and Depression Together on Psychology Today makes some really good arguments about the conditions (or condition, as the argument goes), ones that make real sense to me, as someone who has dealt with both, (it does however gloss over the fact that there can also be chemical, body issues involved as well). These two parts especially made sense to me:
“Depression seems to be a shutdown,” explains Barlow. “Anxiety is a kind of looking to the future, seeing dangerous things that might happen in the next hour, day or weeks. Depression is all that with the addition of ‘I really don’t think I’m going to be able to cope with this, maybe I’ll just give up.’ It’s shutdown marked by mental, cognitive or behavioral slowing.”
And this,
“The shared cornerstone of anxiety and depression is the perceptual process of overestimating the risk in a situation and underestimating personal resources for coping.” Those vulnerable see lots of risk in everyday things-applying for a job, asking for a favor, asking for a date.
Further, anxiety and depression share an avoidant coping style. Sufferers avoid what they fear instead of developing the skills to handle the kinds of situations that make them uncomfortable.
16. This quote from Sas Petherick, which sums up my “new deal” very nicely: “These days I find it much more appealing to consider how I want to feel and who I want to be, rather than what I want to do.”
17. My word for 2013 is Freedom. In talking about it the other day with someone who selected Free, I was joking that we should have a theme song. That made me start with the first one that came to mind, Freebird, and I found this lovely cover.
Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes from the center.
~Rumi
26. “Creating a beautiful life is your highest calling. It is in the ordinary and overlooked details of the everyday that beauty is revealed, sustained, and nurtured.” ~Sarah Ban Breathnach
27. “The thing that is really hard and really amazing is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” ~Anna Quindlen
28. From Dudjom Rinpoche, Wisdom Nectar: Dudjom Rinpoche’s Heart Advice:
At all times, do not lose courage in your inner awareness; uplift yourself, while assuming a humble position in your outer demeanor. Follow the example of the life and complete liberation of previous accomplished masters (siddha). Do not blame your past karma; instead, be someone who purely and flawlessly practices the Dharma. Do not blame temporary negative circumstances; instead, be someone who remains steadfast in the face of whatever circumstances may arise.
In brief, taking your own mind as witness, make your life and practice one, and at the time of death, with no thought of anything left undone, do not be ashamed of yourself. This itself is the pith instruction of all practices.
29. What Are You Doing New Years Eve? by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Happiest of New Years to you, kind and gentle reader. I am so grateful that you are here, and wish you all the best.
This post started as a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.
3. Time away from my paid work. Some emails are starting to trickle in this week, but I’m mostly staying away. I need the break, the rest, to reset and restore, contemplate and plan. I feel much clearer about a lot of things and am grateful.
5. This idea, #15 on the list, “Turn Your Hangers to Find Out What You Really Wear.” I am totally doing it. I’ve heard of a similar idea before (put all your stuff on black hangers, and after you wear something, put it back in the closet on a white hanger, and anything still on a black hanger after six months, get rid of because you aren’t wearing it), but had never done it because it was a tad more complicated and sort of wasteful (I’d have to buy a whole new set of hangers)–but this version is SO simple. I want clothes that look and feel good, are functional and high quality and beautiful, and that’s not at all what is in my closet right now. Let the great purge begin! 
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 