Tag Archives: Sharon Salzberg

Something Good

Arthur's Rock, image by Eric

Arthur’s Rock, image by Eric (the zoom on my new camera is crazy good)

So great to be partnering with Wanderlust to share this list with a larger audience.

And P.S., I didn’t realize it until it was already published, but last week’s was the 200th Something Good list!

1. Watch Twilight Zone Creator Rod Serling Discuss Writing and Storytelling.

2. The root of the “food prison” from Isabel Foxen Duke.

3. Overcoming the 10 Biggest Obstacles to Creating on Zen Habits.

4. It’s been 19 months, a beautiful, horrible piece about the aftermath of a sister’s suicide.

5. Entitlement vs. worthiness from Seth Godin, in which he makes a really important distinction.

6. Good stuff on Positively Presents Picks list: 13 Ways Reading Will Improve Your Life and 30-day gratitude photo challenge: 2015 edition.

7. Trust by Maya Stein, one of her 10-line Tuesday poems. You can sign up to have one in your inbox every Tuesday. You should sign up. She’s an amazing poet. The way she lands a last line cracks the whole poem wide open, e v e r y time.

8. Why You Should Do NaNoWriMo…And Why You Shouldn’t on Terrible Minds. It started officially yesterday. Are you? Here’s a pep talk from Chuck if you need it, NaNoWriMo Pep Talk: The Perfect Machine Versus The Art Monster.

9. Take a Walk Around the Lake on Be More With Less.

10. 2nd Annual Awake in the World event. Starting on November 4th, you can get access to over 30 dialogues, presentations, and guided meditations in this FREE offering. “Over the course of 5 days you can explore teachings and practices with the potential to transform your personal sense of well-being, your relationships, your work life, and our society. Topics range from learning how to meditate, to applying mindfulness in everyday life, living with more purpose, getting involved in societal transformation and so much more.” Did I mention this is all FREE?! What are you waiting for? Go sign up!

11. 50 Questions to Help You Foster Gratitude and Feel Good About Life, an excellent set of contemplations from Tiny Buddha that would make great journal prompts or conversation starters.

12. So you want to have kids…A one-sided story of what to be prepared for in parenthood. “You will get poop on you.”

13. What I Wish I’d Known About Miscarriage. There are a lot of really good pieces on Medium about this topic.

14. Margaret Atwood On How Tech Influences Creativity.

15. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club,

Dreamers are not always treated with kindness and understanding. Visionaries are rarely taken seriously. People who seek for what is good and true are often scoffed, laughed at or shut down.

It’s brave to keep dreaming big dreams, to keep posing big questions, to decide not to settle for the status quo. It’s brave to seek for more beauty, goodness, joy and light in a world when it’s often so hard to find. It’s so courageous to keep your heart and mind on the good stuff and to ignore the fears that try so hard to keep us from all that our hearts are begging to have and experience.

16. Good stuff from Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter: A reminder: If you want fans, you have to be a fan first and The Steal Like An Artist Journal Talk.

17. Simple But Not Easy: The Right Effort of Beginning Again by Sharon Salzberg on On Being.

18. ‘Wild’ author Cheryl Strayed says you need to be ‘be brave enough to break your own heart,’ an interview from The Los Angeles Times.

19. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck from Mark Manson.

20. Good stuff from Bored Panda: Wiener Dog Totally Photobombs Couple’s Engagement Photos, and Never Leave Your Bed Again With This Awesome Japanese Invention, and Colorful Murals Appear On Roads Only When It’s Raining.

21. Something is going to kill you. Life is about what happens before that. “Maybe bacon causes cancer. So does sunshine. Everything that might possibly sustain us and bring joy to our lives only hastens our inevitable deaths.” This doesn’t mean we don’t take care of ourselves, but it certainly means maybe we shouldn’t get so hysterical about every little thing that we miss the good stuff. It’s about discernment, silly humans. Besides, Research links cancer to fruit and vegetables. In related news, Forget the Bacon: Living in Poverty Means You Have An Advanced Risk of Getting Cancer.

22. You can’t pay your rent with “the unique platform and reach our site provides” by Wil Wheaton. Or you could look at it this way: What This ‘Star Trek’ Actor Gets Wrong about Working for Free.

23. A Room Of My Own, on the importance of making a space for yourself.

24. I lead, they teach from Laurie Wagner. This is about writing, but it’s also about the importance of community, and how even virtual community can be real. I take one of Laurie’s Wild Writing classes, and she’s totally right — it’s fucking magic.

25. “You Are Fat.”

26. 10/10 Would Be Fat Again from Meghan Tonjes. She did a really great cover of the new Adele song too.

https://youtu.be/6_Po2lELD6A

27. A video by Jess Blank with a special thanks to Roz The Diva. Defying body-norm-expectations with her inspiring athleticism and determination, she’s reclaiming an activity many consider objectifying.

28. I have finally isolated the problem, wisdom from Anne Lamott on Facebook.

29. A Week in the Life of Maira Kalman. “The illustrator reads the obits, wanders New York City and embraces an attitude of gratitude.” This is so simple, so beautiful.

30. I’ve been wanting to tell you… from Tiffany Han. Just trust me, you need to go read this. Go ahead. Go now. I’ll wait.

31. Wisdom from L.R. Knost,

Life is amazing. And then it’s awful, And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful and relax an exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soulhealing, amazing, awful ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.

32. 15+ Brutally Honest Illustrations Perfectly Sum Up Adulthood, which led me to my new favorite Instagram account.

33. Wisdom from Liza Palmer, “Angry is just sad’s bodyguard.”

34. Cracking the Codes: Joy DeGruy “A Trip to the Grocery Store.” So important.

35. No, it’s not you: why ‘wellness’ isn’t the answer to overwork. “No amount of multivitamins, yoga, meditation, sweaty exercise, superfoods or extreme time management, as brilliant as all these things can be, is going to save us from the effects of too much work.” Amen. Oh, and while we are at it, there’s no such thing as work/life balance — it’s all your life, silly humans.

36. Video: Taylor Phinney discovers his love for painting. “Phinney broke his leg in a crash at the 2014 U.S. nationals last May and has been on the mend since. He discovered his hidden talent of painting four months after the incident.”

37. ‘Ridiculous Fun’ Helps A Blogger See Through Depression’s Darkness.

38. Of naphopomo and the advent of light, two really great offerings from Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks.

39. Flow to the Music With This Trance-Inducing Playlist. I’m loving it, might even put Spotify on my phone so I can play it at my class tomorrow morning.

40. Feel-Good Yoga: 10 Poses to Feed Our Souls on Elephant Journal.

41. This Site Will Make a Stuffed Animal Clone of Your Pet. I’ve also seen felted mini clones, which I like even better. I need some.

42. A Healing Technique to Release Old Wounds on Elephant Journal.

43. Fiery Sweet Potatoes recipe. I need to try these. I read the list of ingredients and all I could think was “get in my mouth.”

44. A blessing from Elizabeth Gilbert and Rumi on Facebook.

45. HAES is Not Spooky, but Bad Research Methods Are on Dances with Fat.

Something Good

Peach bread, etc.

Peach bread, etc.

1. Brave Girl University. This is going to be seriously awesome, y’all. I’m talking epic.

2. Unfurl – Chapter One. Meghan Genge is sharing audio recordings of her new book, one chapter per week. I long for the comfort of curling up and being read to, so this is such a gift.

3. Hard Conversations: An Introduction to Racism, Unconscious Racism, and Silent Racism. This started yesterday, but you can still sign up. Patti is putting this together and offering it for FREE, but if you think it is important, even if you can’t take part any other way, you can help fund this good work.

4. Master working for yourself without crushing your soul by Paul Jarvis.

5. Good stuff from Seth Godin: What is your art? and Yes!, please and thank you.

6. Good stuff from Zen Habits: Worried About What You’re Not Doing and A Brief Guide to Quitting a Bad Habit.

7. Defining What Works by Rachel Cole.

8. Good stuff from Chookooloonks this was a good week list: the importance of plating.

9. July, in the kitchen from SouleMama. This post makes me hungry.

10. 13 Things I Learned in 13 Years of Teaching My Taos Writing Retreat from Jen Louden.

11. Wisdom from Brave Girls Club, “The people who really matter in your life don’t care what you wear, what you drive or where you live…..they love that beautiful heart of yours.”

12. The Good Questionnaire on A Design So Vast.

13. When you’re done fighting for it. The upside of finally giving up from Danielle LaPorte.

14. Fear Is Fucking Us All Up from Terrible Minds.

15. Good stuff on Rita’s Notebook: Are you already doing the thing you’re meant to do? and Antidote to the August blues.

16. Wisdom from Jessica Patterson:

A spiritual practice ought to be something that can sustain you until your last breath. THAT is why I make time, every damn day, to sit humbly at the feet of trees (or the sea or mountains or the desert, wherever I am) under whatever sky we are given, and just be held. Stilled. I get a lot of “must be nice to have free time” messages from people who miss the subtle but vital distinction: ALL my time is free–mine, and mine to inhabit. That I choose to bow daily at the feet of something beautiful does not mean my schedule is easy or open. I could lament and bitch and do my best to keep up with the Jonesing neuroses of our world and post about that. But I try to carry that practice and beauty into the busyness of my days and remember that I am, in fact, free. My opinions, tastes, abilities, worries, desires, obligations, and interests may shift with time and circumstance. But I think I am always going to want to be held by something bigger than me. And so I practice that daily. No matter what. And you know what? I have not regretted that practice. Not once.

17. Boy Who Couldn’t Afford Books Asks Mailman For Junk Mail To Read; Mailman Responds Spectacularly.

18. Support Isabel in Interfaith Education and Service. Isabel blogs at Lists and Letters, and just started writing an advice column, Dear Bare Heart.

19. 30+ Resources to Help White Americans Learn About Race and Racism.

20. Of Lions and Men: Mourning Samuel DuBose and Cecil the Lion.

21. Day #18: 7/28/2015: WYSIWYG Ten Lessons from Project Awake 365.

22. Find out how I respond to “Are you a saver or a spender?” in this post on Mabel Magazine’s blog.

23. Burg Story from Amy McCracken. The best and worst story e v e r.

24. Jane Goodall Speaks Out About Slain Lion.

25. 6 Reasons People Claim Waving the Confederate Flag Isn’t Racist – Squashed.

26. How White People Sound When They “Disagree” With PoC About Racism.

27. 13 Graphs That Will Speak To You If You Suffer From Anxiety.

28. Wisdom from Erica Cook, “I’m not interesting in competing with anyone, I hope we all make it.”

29. Tig Notaro Boyish Girl Interrupted – Tease (HBO). Can’t wait to see this.

30. Social Media and Ambient Intimacy from Jason Silva.

31. Wisdom from Christina Rosalie on Instagram,

Love is why we are here, of course.
this life, begging us
to notice it’s wildness,
its unpredictable, yet
certain briefness and wonder.

32. The obesity era.

32. May You Know the Fearlessness of an Open Heart by Sharon Salzberg.