Tag Archives: Mark Nepo

Something Good

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Frozen City Park Pond

Frozen City Park Pond

1. Let’s make some magic in 2014, Susannah Conway’s Unravelling the Year Ahead workbook.

2. My Word of the Year for 2014 and The Importance of Outtakes! from Vivienne McMaster. She also wrote a wonderful guest post for Rachel Cole.

3. Wisdom from Danna Faulds,

Despite illness of body or mind,
in spite of blinding despair or
habitual belief, who you are
is whole. Let nothing keep you
separate from the truth.

4. Puppy reunited with his dad after being found under rubble 9 days after tornado destroyed home on Dog Heirs, (and his name is Dexter). Every time you read a story like this, the dog’s person always says something like this one did, that he’d lost everything but he was okay because he’d found his dog. When disaster strikes, we don’t care so much about our stuff, we just want our dogs (people, other pets) to be okay.

5. Good stuff from Viral Nova: A Retired Mathematician Found A Rotting Cabin From 1830. What He Did With It Is Perfection. and Here Are The 28 Cutest Things That Have Ever Happened. #20 Made My Entire Year. and See That Tiny Entrance? A Guy Just Went Down There… And You Gotta See What He Found. and This Little Terrier Got That Rottweiler Pregnant. And You’re Gonna Want To See Their Puppies, Trust Me. — trust ME, they are stupid cute!

6. Good stuff from Marc and Angel Hack Life: 12 Lies People Love to Tell You and 7 Smart Ways to Deal with Toxic People.

7. Good stuff from Chookooloonks: finding peace and announcing create.2014!

8. Wisdom from Mark Nepo, “No matter how we study or analyze or hone our skills, the greatest teachers have always been love and suffering.”

9. Desire: Hedonism or Happiness? from Jonathan Fields, in which he says,

Sometimes I still need to do the things I hate doing. The things that don’t let me feel the way I want to feel. I don’t entirely buy the fact that if the ride doesn’t feel the way you want to feel at every step along the journey, there’s something wrong.

Especially as a maker, a creator, an entrepreneur. There are times you need to do what you’re least called to do until your endeavor is far enough along to generate the cash, resources, story, energy needed to pay people to do the things that light them up, but empty you out.

10. Marc Johns calls this one life as a tennis racket, but I think you could just call it “Life.”

11. Wisdom from Tulku Thondup,

When I talk about peace, people sometimes mistakenly think that this means detaching yourself from the stream of life. They view peace as if it were something strange, maybe a numbed or sleepy feeling, or being spaced-out and in a different mental zone. This couldn’t be further from the truth. You can be ‘‘peaceful’’ when you are asleep, but that is only the absence of consciousness. The way to truly heal your life is to be awake to its simple joys and to develop an open, welcoming attitude toward all your activities and encounters with other people. You should enjoy yourself and be fully engaged in what you do.

Notice when you feel open and peaceful. Be aware of any feeling of freedom. Awareness is the key. If you are aware of peace, it has a chance to become part of your life. When you feel peaceful, enjoy it. Don’t force your feelings or chase after them or stir up false excitement. There’s no need to grasp. Simply be aware and let the feeling blossom and open. Allow it to expand. Stay with any positive feeling; allow your mind to relax in it. You may find your body feeling peaceful, too. If your breathing feels more relaxed, or you feel a sensation of warmth, pause to notice that as well and enjoy it.

12. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

Our habitual patterns are, of course, well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wishing for them to be ventilated isn’t enough. Mindfulness and awareness are key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by a strong emotion, do we remember that it is part of our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can’t practice when distracted but know that we can’t, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.

13. Artist Creates Elaborate Non-Photoshopped Scenes in Her Small Studio, amazing and beautiful.

14. Real-Life Fox And The Hound Best Friends Will Melt Your Heart on BuzzFeed. This dog reminds me so much of Dexter.

15. How to Love and be Loved, by a dog on Storyline.

16. before the beginning by Sas Petherick.

17. The 2013 Holiday Gift Guide – Part Three from Rachel Cole.

18. 2013 Meaningful Gift Guide from Create as Folk.

19. Sometimes You Just Need a Snack and a Nap from Curvy Yoga.

20. Kid President’s Holiday Gift Guide.

21. A legacy of Mandela from Seth Godin. My favorite line is, “If you don’t require the journey to be easy or comfortable or safe, you can change the world.”

22. “Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
~Chinese Proverb

23. Good stuff from MindBodyGreen: Why I Don’t Recommend A Vegan, Raw, Paleo Or Gluten-Free Diet and 25 Questions To Ask Yourself Before The End Of The Year and 4 Things Women Need To Stop Apologizing For.

24. Artist weaves delightful ‘bio-sculptures’ & animal habitats out of wood on Tree Hugger.

25. Brené Brown on the Courage to be Vulnerable on the On Being podcast.

26. your daily rock : listen to your life

27. Man’s snow storm ‘bread and milk’ freakout goes viral.

28. Wisdom from Tama J. Kieves

Do not believe your fear. You will not be stuck forever. Things will shift. The way will open. This is a Universe of Love. The only reason it’s hard to trust is because you keep caressing your anxiety instead of moving forward. Take the steps you can take. The light always emerges.

29. The Why We Rescue project is complete, all 50 states are up. This project is one of the best things of 2013.

30. Keep Your Day Job, advice from Austin Kleon.

31. What are you building in the New Year? (Get it down on paper. Start here.) from Alexandra Franzen.

32. From Positively Present Picks: 33 Unusual Tips to Being a Better Writer, (I don’t necessarily agree with all of these), and Spending Time with Some Difficult People over the Holidays? Consider These Tips. and A Beautiful Mess photo app.

33. Give the Gift of Self-Compassion, another post about the Self-Compassion Saturday series.

34. Another round of ZenPen the ecourse is open for registration.

Something Good

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1. READ THIS when you can’t remember who you are, what you do, why you do it — or how to talk about it from Alexandra Franzen.

2. Intimate Portraits of Cosplayers at Home from Twisted Sifter.

3. Simplify Your Life by Writing It Down and The Greatest Secret to Productivity That No One is Talking About from Be More With Less.

4. From Chookooloonks: what are we looking for? which led to what we hope to find.

5. Wisdom from Danielle LaPorte, “With envy out of the way, you’ll have more room for your own greatness.”

6. Wisdom from the Dalai Lama,

When the teachings say we need to reduce our fascination with the things of this life, it does not mean that we should abandon them completely. It means avoiding the natural tendency to go from elation to depression in reaction to life’s ups and downs, jumping for joy when you have some success, or wanting to jump out the window if you do not get what you want. Being less concerned about the affairs of this life means assuming its ups and downs with a broad and stable mind.

7. Good stuff from MindBodyGreen: 10 Ways To Stop Stressing & Start Living Peacefully, and Is It Time To Stop Worrying About Sugar? (You Don’t Have To Quit It), and The Ultimate Bliss Salad With Ginger Miso Dressing.

8. My 10 favorite “Before I die” responses: Candy Chang celebrates the release of her book on the TED Blog.

9. Wisdom from Pema Chödrön,

We use our emotions. We use them. In their essence, they are simply part of the goodness of being alive, but instead of letting them be, we take them and use them to regain our ground. We use them to try to deny that in fact no one has ever known or will ever know what’s happening. We use them to try to make everything secure and predictable and real again, to fool ourselves about what’s really true. We could just sit with the emotional energy and let it pass. There’s no particular need to spread blame and self-justification. Instead, we throw kerosene on the emotion so it will feel more real.

10. No One is Coming from the Positivity Blog. Oh how I wish the right person would read this, really hear it. *sigh*

11. Hello 35!, a list of lessons Tammy from Rowdy Kittens has learned over the last thirty-five years. She’s one smart cookie.

12. Wisdom from Ronna Detrick, “It is one thing to admit, maybe only to ourselves, what we most want, need, and deeply desire. It is another thing entirely to trust that we might be worthy of such, to give that internal voice any semblance of credibility.”

13. Danielle LaPorte Truthbomb, “So much is a cry for love.”

14. Distraction or desiring? What you are choosing? from Jennifer Louden.

15. Good stuff from Elephant Journal: Can Yoga Save Us? and How I came to love my body–just the way it is.

16. 15 Reasons why Fort Collins is the Greatest City in America. I love where I live, but do not understand why Lee Martinez Park is not on this list. Wait, scratch that — let’s continue to keep it our little secret.

17. The Simple Guide to a Clutter-Free Home from Becoming Minimalist.

18. DIY: Hem Jeans Fast & Easy.

19. your daily rock : amazing grace and your daily rock : let someone help you

20. You don’t need to dance before your double mastectomy to be awesome from Lisa Bonchek Adams.

21. From Susannah Conways’s Something for the Weekend list, The Plant Whisperer.

22. Shared (first stanza) by Kelly Rae Roberts in her newsletter:

What in your life is calling you?
When all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
and the wild iris blooms by itself
in the dark forest,
what still pulls on your soul?

In the silence between your heartbeats
hides a summons.
Do you hear it?
Name it, if you must,
or leave it forever nameless,
but why pretend it is not there?
~Terma Collective

23. A 4-Year-Old Girl Asked A Lesbian If She’s A Boy. She Responded The Awesomest Way Possible, a really great talk Ash Beckham gave at the TEDx Boulder, shared here by Upworthy. I especially loved, “Hard is not relative, hard is hard,” and “When you do not have hard conversations, when you do not tell the truth about who you really are, you essentially are holding a hand grenade.”

24. Shared by Tammy Strobel of Rowdy Kittens on her Happy Links: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Microbusiness and There are no rules.

25. Lessons in love – a tribute to Charlie on Life is Limitless. *sob*

26. This is an actual essay written by a college applicant to NYU.

27. Golden Retriever Puppy Cam. This is only going to get better.

28. Dogs vs. broccoli from Dog Heirs. I had no idea this was so popular.

29. 11 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My Business from .

30. Comfort Food: No one brings dinner when your daughter is an addict on Slate.

31. There is no gone, on Painted Path. Amen.

32. Wisdom from Tama J. Kieves,

You want to know “how” you will do your dreams. You want a guarantee. I’ll give you one. Commit to tasting the nectar of anything that brings you joy or peace. Get hooked on your own idiosyncratic ecstasy. You will have found your reason. You will have experienced an undeniable power. Then you will listen to yourself. And that is how you find your how.

33. Wisdom from Parker Palmer, shared by Curvy Yoga, “The heart is where we integrate what we know in our minds with what we know in our bones, the place where our knowledge can become more fully human.”

34. Creating the Life We Want from Annie Neugebauer, in which she says really good stuff, like,

It can be indescribably difficult sometimes, to follow through with our desires. For me, the main push-back comes from intangible socieital pressures. I don’t want to care what others think about me, but holy crap do I ever. I really care. I want people to like me. (Why is that made into such a despicable sentiment? Doesn’t everyone want to be liked?) More importantly, I want people to respect me – or at least accept my choices. The problem, then, arises when what I want isn’t what society wants me to want, and I must overcome that natural instinct and step beyond its draw.

35. 2013 Holiday Gift Guide – Part Two from Rachel Cole. Registration for Rachel’s Wisdom Notes for a Well-Fed Holiday is now open. Most people have holiday traditions, and I think this is becoming one of mine.

36. Stunning Portraits Of The World’s Remotest Tribes Before They Pass Away on Bored Panda. Makes me think two things are natural about, fundamental to humans, that honoring these things is essential to our survival: we are creative and we have a relationship with the earth and its creatures.

37. The first lie… from Seth Godin.

38. Free High-Resolution Photos from Paul Jarvis.

39. Wisdom from Mark Nepo, “To be broken is no reason to see all things as broken.”

40. Day 1: ‘Hey, What’s The Neighbor Doing To His Lawn?’ Day 60: ‘OMG!!’ This is exactly what we are doing to our front yard, little by little.

41. From Positively Present Picks, Two people decided to surprise New York’s jaded subway conductors, and the results will make your day.

42. Photographer Takes Beautiful Portraits of Shelter Dogs to Find Them Homes, shared with me by Justine, who like me wants to rescue all the dogs.

43. New music on SoundCloud. I am obsessed with Furns, and Sales is good too. Furns “Power” might be my favorite new song.

44. Are You Happy And In Love? Here’s Why That Makes You So Sad. from Upworthy. The only thing I disagree with here is that he says the Buddhist practice of non-attachment means you don’t care, and that is just wrong, a misunderstanding of the basic concept.

45. The Control Myth, a brilliant blog post by Michael Baugh that combines dog training with the wisdom of Pema Chödrön and Brene’ Brown, and says “What do we want, control or connection?” Thanks for sharing it, Sarah (and thanks for about 100 other things too), my favorite dog trainer.

46. Two brilliant pieces on being self-employed from the brilliant Susan Piver, Self-Employment: Three Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me and The pain of pricing.