Tag Archives: Mark Nepo

Day of Rest

9 Replies

It’s not about letting go of worry or getting over fear.

It’s about letting go of the idea that you can control everything, or anything.

It’s about making space for uncertainty and doubt.

It’s about surrendering to impermanence and getting past resistance to change.

It’s about “having the life you want by being present to the life you have,” (the subtitle to Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening).

It’s about confidence, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment,” (the brilliant Susan Piver said that).

It’s about paying attention, being mindful and present.

It’s about letting go of both hope and fear.

It’s about having faith in basic goodness, our innate and fundamental and natural wisdom and compassion, our essential and shared humanity.

It’s about risking heartbreak and failure, knowing that it’s so much better than being numb.

It’s about living a wholehearted life–“engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging,” (from Brene’ Brown’s new book, Daring Greatly).

It’s about refusing to smash yourself to bits, and not being afraid of yourself.

It’s about choosing vulnerability over safety and predictability, letting go of the longing for solid ground, for a life of nothing but happiness and security.

It’s about love.

It’s about having the courage to face your own life, show up, keep your heart open, and allow yourself to be seen.

It’s about being brave.

a winnebago parked in my neighborhood, the brave model

Who’s with me?

Book Writing Saturday

11 Replies

The past four hours weren’t just about book writing, but also about book making and book reading and book research. I showed up, kept my heart open, and trusted my innate wisdom about where to focus my attention, where to put my hands, where to place my heart.

I started with writing about simplicity and the tiny sacred moments of our lives, about fear and story, about making space for magic to unfold.

Then I read from Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening and Brene’ Brown’s Daring Greatly, and I wrote some more. I poked around Austin Kleon’s website. I looked at Christina Rosalie’s A Field Guide to Now, flipping through the pages and looking at the artwork. This is the kind of research I do when I’m writing. I had a silent, one sided, but very real conversation with each author, asking questions and offering gratitude.

After that, I moved to book making, working on a belated birthday present for a friend who I’ll be meeting for lunch later. I scissored, printed, and glue sticked images and wrote lines of poetry, quotes, and writing prompts in a journal whose cover I had painted earlier this summer.

What the above picture can’t show are the tears, the big idea I got, the glue that’s dried on my fingers, the hunger in my belly, the sound of Greg Laswell singing in the background, and the tenderness, the surrender, the letting go.