Before
After
New bliss bling at my etsy site. This set was a complete joy to usher into existence--but they all are. This one commemorated getting back in touch with some friends from another lifetime, and it was a lovely experience, full of great food, little ones, and appreciating what I've got in my life. Click on the link and take a look. Take some bling home with you.
Follow your gut.
That phrase used to bewilder me, since I had no clue what type of communication my gut was giving me.
Now that I've managed to rediscover how to tune in to that frequency, I do my best to honor the guidance it has in store. Even if that means stepping on someone else's toes, upsetting an apple cart, rocking the boat. I've sunk my own boat often enough by not listening to this guidance that it's too costly not to, in the end.
Maintaining boundaries, or not, with people teaches them, and you, how you want to be treated. Take a look at this area in your life and see the results all around you and erupting inside you if you don't feel so great.
Of course there's a way to let people know what you require, what you expect, what you prefer, and there's outright animosity and finger-pointing. I would highly recommend developing a sensitively delivered form of the former rather than the latter. Because if I'm coming from a place of feeling exploited, then I didn't do the due diligence of communicating what was on my mind in the first place. My bad.
This also enters the arena of bargaining with yourself about who you really are and what isn't acceptable in terms of behavior and esteem, or lack of it, from others. Hearing out loud coming from your own mouth what it is that you want is a powerful experience. And it gets easier with practice.
It's not about accusation. It's about clarification. And when you know on a cellular level something just isn't right, then it's time to say so, and go.
Before a decade goes by and your life isn't exactly what you thought it would be.
Funky Buddha. Didn't make it there in my foray into the wilds of Chicago recently. So many places to check out. But I'll be back.
Just saw this go over the Twitter wire: "Don't waste your time believing you can't."
A few things out of whack with that statement. If you do waste your time believing that you can't do something, you probably aren't aware that that belief is unfounded.
If the concept of believing you can do something is so foreign to you that you haven't felt the slightest bit of relief that thought might offer you in a very long time, this advice is equally a waste of time.
Perhaps a better reframe might be, "You know that belief you keep thinking-- 'I can't' ? It's possible that it's not true."
Living in doubt and fear leaves you open to only a certain bandwidth of sense. Someone in that place might be able to hear this more appropriately-stated-for-them message.
Meandering around on Twitter today, I stumbled upon this awesome blog post from joy rebel:
An army for a joy rebellion that is!!!
I posted the following invitation on a dear online community that I am part of:
your mission, should you choose to accept it:
To become a bombastic warrior chick (or dude), a fierce member of the joy rebel army.
your training: hand to hand combat against that greatest of evils: self doubt
Expert
use of rampant positivity, disciplined funkiness and deploying radical
self acceptance against all odds. Your training will come at great
sacrifice. Negativity dealers will confront you, energy vampires will
attempt to kidnap you. You will become vigilant against their attempts
to seduce you.
Your duties: To employ your own unique brand of
joy. Wonderfully awful art, messy love, spontaneous dancing, cozy
cuddling, quiet tears, angry letters, epic poems.
*warning*
You may experience brain washing as your heart expands and floods the
inner critic sentry that resides in your cranium. Side affects are:
ridiculous grins, toe tapping in public, enchanted cursing, imperfect
magic and a slight pink tinge to your aura.
So I stand before you, oh potential warrior. Do you choose to accept your mission??
And people did. This thing sort of grew and has some really fun energy behind it. Enough to the point where we plan having actual missions. Fun stuff like writing 'joy' on the sidewalk or giving yourself a warrior name or leaving a love note in a library book or...well, whatever we come up with.
So much fun, in fact, that I thought hey, I'll invite the switched on humans that I know in the blogging community too.
What I love about this is..well, if I can be honest. It's not another self help thing, another 'to do'. must clean house. must read book on self growth. must fix me. Don't get me wrong, I have had amazing and wonderful experiences because of what I've learned in several key self help or spiritual books. I'm not saying that growing and learning aren't important.
But if you want to know the truth, I think once you've read a few books, been to a few classes or workshops, you start to realize that the basic principles are the same. This is a good thing. It means that sound knowledge is still being passed down and shared. Whatever the newest self help book is on the market probably has the same basic ideas as 'power of positive thinking' from the 80's and 'think and grow rich' from the 30's (?).
Is anyone else tired of beating themselves over the head with criticism and fear and this list and that book and cleaning the house and saving the planet and getting a sale and getting published/discovered/written up/interviewed?
God I'm so sick of all of this. I'm tired of just trying so damn hard all the time and never taking time to appreciate and enjoy the life that I have now. The good now. The joy in me now.
The basics haven't changed.
listen to your heart
be kind (to yourself and others)
live in the moment
simplify
think positive
do good
breath
and my personal favorite: it's not enough to know these, it's time to live them.
So let's do that shall we??? Let's go have some fun.
I post weekly missions on the board. Of course anyone that wants to join the community is welcome to but I was also thinking I could just post them here as well (every monday).
Who's with me???"
~*~*~*~
I hope you don't mind the copy-and-paste, joy rebel, but I want to help spread the word about reclaiming your authentic self and remembering who you really are. Enough with the fix-it and must-do lists. We are here for joy.
I am so in.
"The ignominious declivity of the Internet will empower the entrenchment of our intestinal fortitude."
Um, sure, OK.
If you enjoyed that randomly generated phrase, you might have some fun over here: http://bit.ly/cTyJQ
I walked around this part of the city, taking in the reclaimed aura of the buildings and the streets, mixing in with the people who live and work there now: babies in strollers, babushkas inspecting their neighborhoods, and every age and status in between, and the undeniable presence of those who first lived here a century and a half ago. They watch us, wondering what we'll do with our choices, our time, our talents, our dreams.
So this inner grappling I've been doing with my expression of late seems to be producing an interesting result: I'm thinking about coming up with a new vocabulary, a new language for articulating what's in my head. So I'm going to experiment with communication in new ways for the next few weeks and see what happens.
I discovered yet another layer to the adage that that still small voice inside your head, it's your sanity talkin'. Many times over the last five or six days I've hit the sides of this pinball game called life that I'm in and sacheted off the bumpers, glad for the warning that the thoughts I was thinking were about to send me down to that end-of-the-game hole at the bottom if I wasn't going to pay attention. And frantically flayling with the flipper mechanisms at that point is just a waste of time. Much better to catch it in the early stages when the lights and buzzers are participating in your favor.
Me, taken with the help of the reflective sides of The Bean in Millennium Park in downtown Chi-town.
Cutie patootie on her way to get soaked at the spitting wall. Photos of that event later. Time to nap and recuperate from the drive.
So much fabulousness is going on in my life right now.
I would be typing for days to get it all documented, so I've been resisting that lock on my time rather than just living it all, moment to moment.
For now I will say that I am in Chicago for the Abe seminar tomorrow. Driving in rush hour traffic is never much fun--'nuff said,' nuff focus on something I can't do anything about and is over already. While I'm waiting for my friend's flight to land and to take the shuttle and check in, the nice young man behind the desk at the Crown Plaza was kind enough to log me in to the wifi system. The employees here are awesome--they answer all questions from everyone with grace and with a smile. You don't see that every day, now do you?
In a few days I will be time warping when I meet up with some people I haven't seen for 25 years. Quite extraordinary, really. I can't imagine how it happened that I am at the point in my life where I can do that kind of math. The next 48 hours will be a whirlwind infusion of jazzedness, humor, eye and ear candy, fabulous food, and great company. In anticipation, I'm remembering all the times in my life when I've been so excited about what was about to transpire that I couldn't stand it.
Now I'm savoring the vibe and extracting all the goodness I can out of the time leading up to the events. I remember Tiger Woods saying something about learning how to reign in the highs of his wins and the lows of his losses, working toward a more balanced overall approach to his game and his life. I find great value in that advice. Fewer sugar highs and fewer plummets in the depths make for a happier psyche and a healthier body.
In a few weeks when I'm back home, appreciating the rural setting of where I live and remembering this excellent adventure, then I can suck the marrow out of the bones if it all.
This is the result of a design commission from a new friend who gave me this to work with: "I got this hot pink sweater from my mom, and since then have gotten a few other articles of clothing the same color, with nothing to wear with it. Maybe throw in some orange, too."
