February 16th, 2017
Affirmation: I am loving and accepting of others. I create lasting friendships with others.
Word of the Day: procrustean (adj):
___
Blogosphere Roundup
Periodically, I will share with you some of my favorite recent reads from the blogosphere. I would love to here your thoughts and reflections on these pieces as well as feedback about what topics you would like to see more or less of.
Enjoy!
1. The First Step to Saying Yes to Life — Admitting Who We Are
A beautiful reflection on what it means to admit ourselves to lives by first admitting ourselves to ourselves by one of my all-time favorite poets, Mark Nepo.
2. Joan Didion on Self-Respect
I struggle a great deal with self-respect, and I found myself breathing a deep sigh of relief as I read the following quote,
"The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others...
4. 5 Powerful Ways to Keep the Energy and Optimism Up During the Dark and Cold Winter
Ok... it is definitely 70 degrees here today, but I know that the Northeast is getting pounded with winter storms, so I thought I would share!
5. Are You Yearning to be the Perfect Package?
Because perfect is the enemy of the good. And perfect is also the enemy of progress. And because when we allow ourselves to believe in perfection or the supposed things it will bestow us, we are only lying to ourselves and deluding ourselves and preventing ourselves to open ourselves to full, rich, beautiful, messy, and whole living.
6. 5 Daily Habits That Can Help the World Heal a Little Each Day
I love how this article ties together so many crucial elements of sustainable well being: prioritization, self-respect, goal-setting, values, environmental and societal consciousness, empowerment, growth, and more.
7. 5 Minutes Is All It Takes To Curb Climate Change
I am really passionate about environmental issues, and yet there are still so many things I do that I could easily change to benefit the planet and it's (and our!) future.
8. The latest research on music makes a lot of sense.
9. One in five young adults are now losing their hearing.
10. Recipe For New Sports? Just Add A Drone
RIP.
Affirmation: I am loving and accepting of others. I create lasting friendships with others.
Word of the Day: procrustean (adj):
1. tending to
produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.
2. (initial capital letter) pertaining to
or suggestive of Procrustes.
The Seed Market
Can you find another
market like this?
Where, with your one rose
you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?
Where, for one seed you get a whole wilderness?
For one weak breath, the divine wind?
You have been fearful of being absorbed
in the ground, or drawn up by the air.
Now your waterbead lets go
and drops into the ocean, where it came from.
This giving up is not a repenting.
It is a deep honoring of yourself.
When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at once, quickly for God's sake.
Don't postpone it. Existence has no better gift.
No amount of searching will find this.
A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder, and become yours.
Where, with your one rose
you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?
Where, for one seed you get a whole wilderness?
For one weak breath, the divine wind?
You have been fearful of being absorbed
in the ground, or drawn up by the air.
Now your waterbead lets go
and drops into the ocean, where it came from.
This giving up is not a repenting.
It is a deep honoring of yourself.
When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at once, quickly for God's sake.
Don't postpone it. Existence has no better gift.
No amount of searching will find this.
A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder, and become yours.
___
Blogosphere Roundup
Periodically, I will share with you some of my favorite recent reads from the blogosphere. I would love to here your thoughts and reflections on these pieces as well as feedback about what topics you would like to see more or less of.
Enjoy!
1. The First Step to Saying Yes to Life — Admitting Who We Are
A beautiful reflection on what it means to admit ourselves to lives by first admitting ourselves to ourselves by one of my all-time favorite poets, Mark Nepo.
2. Joan Didion on Self-Respect
I struggle a great deal with self-respect, and I found myself breathing a deep sigh of relief as I read the following quote,
"The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others...
To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an
unwilling audience of one to an interminable documentary that deals with one’s
failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for every
screening...
To
live without self-respect is to lie awake some night... counting up the
sins of commissions and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly
broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or
carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that
notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we
sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.
[…]
Character — the willingness to
accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which
self-respect springs."
In her book Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation, beloved meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg identifies
compassion as one of the three essential skills, along with mindfulness and
concentration, which meditation helps us master by training our attention. Its
deeper meaning and daily practice is what Salzberg explores in this wonderful
short video (just 2.5 minutes).
4. 5 Powerful Ways to Keep the Energy and Optimism Up During the Dark and Cold Winter
Ok... it is definitely 70 degrees here today, but I know that the Northeast is getting pounded with winter storms, so I thought I would share!
5. Are You Yearning to be the Perfect Package?
Because perfect is the enemy of the good. And perfect is also the enemy of progress. And because when we allow ourselves to believe in perfection or the supposed things it will bestow us, we are only lying to ourselves and deluding ourselves and preventing ourselves to open ourselves to full, rich, beautiful, messy, and whole living.
6. 5 Daily Habits That Can Help the World Heal a Little Each Day
I love how this article ties together so many crucial elements of sustainable well being: prioritization, self-respect, goal-setting, values, environmental and societal consciousness, empowerment, growth, and more.
7. 5 Minutes Is All It Takes To Curb Climate Change
I am really passionate about environmental issues, and yet there are still so many things I do that I could easily change to benefit the planet and it's (and our!) future.
8. The latest research on music makes a lot of sense.
If you've ever wondered
why music can move you to extreme happiness or tears, consider this. A new
study conducted at McGill University found that music activates the brain's
opioid system. In other words, it creates pleasure in the same way that sex or
sugar does. Still wondering why your favorite song gives you chills every
single time?
9. One in five young adults are now losing their hearing.
According to a troubling
CDC report released yesterday, our lives are way, way too noisy— noisy enough,
in fact, that a disconcertingly high number of Americans are losing their
hearing way before old age. The report analyzed data from the 2011–2012
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which collected
information from a sample of Americans between the ages of 20 and 69. A quarter
of those were suffering some hearing deficits, even though the vast majority of
the people in the study claimed to have good or excellent hearing. May be time
to lower the volume...
10. Recipe For New Sports? Just Add A Drone
You may have
heard of drone racing, but people keep coming up with new ways to enjoy these
flying machines. A Latvian firm has developed a drone to pull snowboarders in a
sport called "droneboarding."
Lol to the cat playing Monopoly.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the wonderful items shared. A few thoughts:
1. Mark Nepo - admitting sounds like things we need to confess and or have hidden - I would prefer to say accepting and loving.
2. Joan Didion - we start with being the 'unwilling audience of one' to other people's negativity. Having osmosed the negativity, we then become the unwilling audience of one to our own self-talk / rehash of the same crap that was originally spewed out of some septic tank that we shouldn't have gone near in the first place. We couldn't / didn't control the first, the second is definitely in our control if we can label each piece of rehash / negative self-talk as 'garbage' or 'gutter' and deliberately move our mind from there. A mantra actually translates to ' mind vehicle' and it is a great way to help your mind make a perfect getaway from garbage. Get yourself a fancy 007 Aston Martin type mantra replete with all the gizmos developed by Q - signed 'M'
Love all the rest too. Thanks!