Tag Archives: Surrender

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: It’s not going to stop until I wise up. I was beating myself up the other day for eating so many lemon poppy seed scones in a single day, (each one is glazed and as big as my face, and I was having a hard week, somehow thought eating them was going to make me feel better, but feeling instead a mix of shame and disgust–this is how it always works). I was starting to get angry, why does this keep happening? why can’t I control myself? why can’t I stop? It was in that moment that I felt something snap and then soften, felt some measure of surrender, giving up, letting go, and I knew: this will continue as long as I deny myself, hide and reject who I truly am, what I really want and feel and need and am, and then it will be over. I realized that until I surrender to what life is really asking of me, give in completely, give up all of the habits and excuses that are stopping me, it won’t ever stop–I have to surrender to what is, to who I am.

2. Truth: I need to shift from a focus on growth to one of sustainability. The way I’m approaching my experience isn’t working, can’t be maintained, is happening at the cost of my health and my sanity. I’m not sure exactly what it should look like instead, I just know I can’t keep doing it like this. I’ll burn out, fade away. I’m attempting and accumulating, but it’s not sustainable. I’m craving space, hungry for stillness and quiet, wanting to clean and declutter, to nest, to rest. It’s the season, but it’s also the path I’ve been on (more like a German autobahn than a path), driving so fast and working so hard to get where, exactly?

3. Truth: Where I want to be, what I am longing to manifest is who I already am, just me, to be that. The card in the picture is on my desk at my paid work. It’s been there for the past year, even though it’s one from a set of 53. There it sits, day after day, giving me its wisdom, silently sending me its message, waiting patiently to be noticed, and I continue to be so busy, I don’t even see it. Until the other day, when I actually saw it, looked, listened, opened my heart to it, felt it whisper this is what I want.

One Wish: For simplicity and spaciousness. “We all want a sense of spaciousness and freedom, but we find we can claim that freedom, strangely, only by living out a focused, radical, courageous simplicity,” (David Whyte). That–a focused, radical, courageous simplicity–that is what I wish for today, kind and gentle reader. For all of us.

Something Good

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1. Rueben Is Just Right, a sweet rescue story.

2. This quote: Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
~Zora Neale Hurston

3. My 3 Fave Ways to Celebrate in under 10 Minutes by Sherry Richert Belul on Cherry Blossom Soup. And also from Sherry, The NEW Black Friday: Make Love Lists Not Shopping Lists!

4. A Dog’s Lessons on Mindfulness on Positively Present.

5. Two from Justine Musk, You Were Born to Be a Badass in which she says “But the first step, as Greene points out, is inward: a turning away from the voices that urge conformity, toward the truth of who you are at core,” and How to Start Creating Your Blog Community, which really has me thinking about what great work we could do together, kind and gentle reader.

6. Some Thoughts and Musings about Making Things for the Web from the Oatmeal.

7. This Black Friday video from The Story of Stuff should explain why I’ll be staying home.

8. Least Likely to be Adopted Dog Pound Portraits, so good that they were all adopted.

9. Jive at the Age of 2, this kid has mad skills.

10. Las Palmas the movie is finally available, only $1.99 to download.

11. The Wonder of Thresholds from Jen Louden, with the extra special bonus of an audio chat with Rachel Cole.

12. The Soul-Shaking Practice of Surrender by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less. Anybody remember a something good list that didn’t have something from Courtney on it?! Yeah, me neither.

13. Get Campie, online vintage camper parade.

14. Judy Clement Wall’s new site is done!!!!!! More doodles, even more love! Reason #115 why I love her.

15. Be More by Doing Less: Removing the Distraction of Busyness and When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed: Create a To-Live List on Tiny Buddha.

16. Wicked Awesome Quotes, a new site from Cigdem Kobu. I pretty much love everything she does, because she’s completely amazing.

17. And yet, the morning comes, the most amazing post from Lisa Bonchek Adams, who recently discovered her breast cancer was back, had metastasized. She ends this post with “I’m still processing. Reeling. But while I’m doing that I’m living.” She is so amazing.

18. This quote from Tulku Thondup:

For healing, it is important to have inspiration. A hopeful and inspired feeling generates enthusiasm, trust, and openness and makes it easier for us to meditate. However, we should not obsess about the meditation experience or have rigid expectations about what should happen. Grasping after results will only become a tourniquet that tightens our mental and physical energies.

19. This quote from Tara Brach, her new book True Refuge:

In the Buddhist teachings, the conscious recognition of our heart’s deepest longing is called wise aspiration. Yours might be for spiritual realization, for loving more fully, for knowing truth, for finding peace. Whatever its flavor, the awareness of what you care about energizes and guides your practice.

20. SoulPancake: Find Peace in the Zen Den. I love the looks on these people’s faces as they step inside, and the woman who says “I’m not finished yet. I can keep going.”

21. Eleanor Roosevelt on Happiness, Conformity, and Integrity on Brain Pickings. My favorite part is this:

Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: “A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others.”

But there is another basic requirement, and I can’t understand now how I forgot it at the time: that is the feeling that you are, in some way, useful. Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we should pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive. And it is its own reward, as well, for it is the beginning of happiness, just as self-pity and withdrawal from the battle are the beginning of misery.

22. Cupcakes for control—A healthy strategy for weight management, from Drop It and Eat: Drop the Diet, Manage Your Weight. This makes so much sense to me.

23. This:

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

24. Don’t Wait from Julia on Painted Path. If you have it to spare, send sweet Julia some love and comfort.

25. I’ve started telling my daughters I’m beautiful. Even those of us who aren’t moms should start doing this, start believing this, for the daughters of the world, for ourselves.

26. This quote, from Cheri Huber:

Those of us who have the awareness, the sensitivity, the great privilege–all the things necessary to awaken and end suffering in this lifetime–need to take that opportunity very, very seriously. As the Buddha pointed out, we never know when such an opportunity will arise again.

27. Stay in the Moment with the TAP Method by Dani, the author of the Positively Present blog.