Can You Wait to Get Up in the Morning?

 We could hardly wait to get up in the morning.
Wilbur Wright

 

Let's admit it, we probably don't all feel like the Wright brothers at this moment. In the last year we've all experienced a loss of some kind. Some a little easier to handle, many quite difficult. Many dreams and ambitions put on hold.

From lost friendships, to losing a steady income, to everything in-between. Each disappointment has caused us to re-think who we are, what we want to contribute, where we are heading.

Each zoom call, each email tells us a story of what people are experiencing around us. Netflix dramas are downright scary, many filled with deceit few with laughter. Some of us are craving the Hallmark movie because it is sweetly predictable. We are often underwhelmed with honesty and truth these days. 

So recently, when I encountered a youtube that I regularly follow where she shared her vulnerability of burn-out, my heart surrendered.

As a fellow creator, with a thousand ideas but only 24 hours each day, holding the responsibility of satisfying her public and her family, she told us in her video how she was doing/drowning.

Can You Wait?

Tell me, do you honestly tell anyone how you're doing? It is okay to be sad, directionless, uncomfortable. It is okay to step back and admit it. And this woman did all that in her video. 

She opened the door to honesty. She was real. She cried. She encouraged others to seek help.

It is the nature of despair that we want to hide. Regardless of who we are, we are all hiding something. (Tweet This) Fear of the expectations of our family, fear of time running out, fear of what we have invested with no or limited outcome. We are tired.

It can paralyze us. But if this fear also gives us the invitation to re-invent ourselves, to re-think our previous choices, gives us the courage to share with others who might be feeling the same, how much hope and comfort could it bring to us all?

Climbing that wall to understanding that our pain is not ours alone takes utmost courage. That others feel it too right now, knowing that we can turn to those on the other side of this experience. Is that not a gift?

Can You Wait?

In the last few weeks, I have heard from people whom I had lost contact with over the last few years. What struck me each time, was how open we have been. How we've shared our feelings of our past memories, asked important questions that showed how much we cared, and opened the door as my youtube lady did.

We stop pretending when we choose our community. For support, for understanding, and also for talking nonsense. (Tweet This)

As our time apart slowly comes to an end, let's not forget what we learned. Perhaps we can create a brighter world, with real hugs, all based on our new more open hearts.

Our fear of today is also our invitation to make a change. (Tweet This)

Stay well, stay kind.

 

 

They Baffle and Bamboozle with Choices

I remember when it was easier to make a decision. Fewer brands of everything including toothpaste, they basically said that they cleaned your teeth. And they did. There wasn't a specific one for whiter teeth, sensitive teeth, or shine-up-faster for your date in one week teeth.

Less of This

It was a more simple time. Less interruptions to who you are. You did or you didn't and you didn't care as much. It was easier to hear the answer. Who am I?

Now, you can spend hours choosing a hair product, a box of cereal, or a brand of coffee.

We are overwhelmed with choices.

Now, you can be a minimalist or fill your walls from floor to ceiling. You can order a print online and hang it up in two days. Do you change your decor with the season, the next holiday or whenever you go by the decor store? 

I know many of you came from a family who had the same sofa from when you were born to when you packed a suitcase and left home. Right? Did anyone care?

And for the last year, we have all been held captive within the four walls 'that we really should paint in the colour of the year'. Yea right, because this is our biggest dilemma? Decision making has become worse.

They want us to choose because they need to sell! (Tweet This) They want to give us a course, send us an email filled with links, offer us something to make our life better. Now sometimes this is good, but often it isn't. You need to choose.

And they won't leave you alone. Psychology Today says that we likely make 2000 decisions every hour! No wonder we are baffled and bamboozled.

Most times what they tell us would be wrong. Only you know what you need. (Tweet This)

More of This

I aim to tell people to not look for the hack, the fix, the instant cure. 

Instead go slow, to get ahead. The chances are you will not strike it rich or be fit or find your life partner on a dating site on your first try. You could be lucky, but you're not likely to be the exception.

The world is full of people looking to get 'there' easily. And it doesn't work because the finding is in the living.

Because here's the secret, no one has it all figured out. We are all not complete, we are all searching.  

So I say, be patient, keep trying, make some mistakes, learn from them, look for the people you can trust. (Tweet This)

And then be still, listen, give it room to happen. Choose to find yourself instead of things.

 

Stay well, stay kind.

 

Heart Tread

 

The weather has been bitterly cold here as it has been in many other areas in Canada and the U.S. 

With the promise of sunny and more temperate numbers, I donned my running shoes and returned to my daily morning walk.

Fresh air, it's told, is good for our bodies and brains. Change your route they say, change direction in your usual loop, they suggest. All in the effort to keep our minds alert.

So how many steps did I walk this morning? That really isn't a measure I keep, with head down (watching for slippery spots), I more likely consider it a good walk based on what I see. And today I found this heart.

Surely just a tread from someone's running shoe. Trampled in the not-yet-cleared sidewalk, I had crossed the street within steps of home, and it was there!

It reminded me of an article I had read recently that asked this question of  readers: when was the last time you gave or received a hug from someone outside of your household? (Tweet This)

Shocking to me, most of the responses were not related to the current isolation we are all in.  And sadly, the answers spoke of a long-term lack of connection. The person who said that he hadn't given or received a hug for two years. And the break-my-heart answer which said that he/she could not remember when they were last embraced.

Okay now, I know what you might be thinking. We all know someone who has consistently done what they can to not be hugable. But the number of people who said that they missed being hugged, that they did not have anyone to hug, that they never learned how to hug. Oh my goodness.

The heart I saw goes out to them. (Tweet This)

A gentle reminder that hugs are everywhere, not only wrapped in your arms. (Tweet This)

Hugs can be found in the cup of coffee paid forward for the next customer, the late night text from your adult child, the shrieks of laughter of a child, even in the holding open of a door.

Sometimes it's found on a sidewalk when you least expect it.

Accepting and giving this hug to you.

Stay well, stay kind.

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It : Book Review

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It 

Ethan Kross

 

 

 

I hear a voice, don't you? It sounds like my own, but it also sounds like a family member, a teacher who didn't believe me, a partner who spoke as he walked away. It is the voice of a threatening boss who said something that was untrue, and a celebrity who admitted a shocking failing.

We listen to them all the time even when we don't hear them. (Tweet This)

This is a great book. A book that cannot, no should not, be rushed. It talks about things we've heard, and things we should have been taught.

Because knowing which voices to listen to and which to hear but still put away is probably our biggest lesson of all. (Tweet This)

I had a friend decades ago, who was outgoing and the centre of every party. She could tell the most outrageous of lies without batting an eye and bend the truth with the skill of practise. We weren't friends for long, but I remember her well. I heard her voice, I didn't trust my gut, I didn't listen to the warning of the adult in my life. And it all turned to crap. The details aren't important. I'm sure you've had someone just like that in your life too.

Chatter gives you the tools to identify the importance of all the voices we've heard along our way. The sounds that come from a television and what they are trying to convince you, the placebos that work because we want to believe, the green spaces that filter into our minds and can truly make us better. All important so that we can choose which ones to let in.

It combines stories of everyday people (some of whom you probably know) with scientific research written in an understandable way. It addresses psychological pain as real as the physical kind and how we can recognize both for the value they bring to our growth.

This is a book to have on your shelf whether you are a student of psychology, now or always, and for everyone who wants to understand their day and the people around them better.

Pick it up! It's definitely worth it.

Stay well, stay kind. (this book will help)

I received an advance copy of this book for an honest review, and now you know what I thought. #NetGalley #Chatter

Do We Ever Finish - My 3-part Party

I'll show you today how our layers run deep, overlapping days of our lives, pages of lessons, chapters we have hidden, all starting from blank.

Do we ever finish? Are there not pieces that always need to be added, words that need to be said, worlds to be entertained, colours to be investigated. You too may have messages to be scraped up and dug through. Circles of friendships and stamps of pain, letters and marks that forever change us.

My 3-part Party

I was thinking of this piece (a 3-part-er) while I walked this morning. Remembering how when I first started on longer races, someone had given me a little trick. 

My 3-part Party

He said "concentrate on someone who has touched your life" while you are putting one foot in front of the other, because there will be scary times when you won't be able to picture the finish line. 

 

We need to be distracted by the right things. (Tweet This)

Think about that one person for one kilometre, concentrate only on them. What they brought to you whether a joy or a lesson. Think about what they grabbed from their life, and what they discarded. Think about what they chose to keep that defined them.The time will pass. And then for the next kilometre think of someone else and do the same.

I've found this to be a handy tool to use each day, because often we don't allow ourselves to fall into it when we should.

And that's what I've done here in this 3 part-party. I let my mind float, let my hands move, let my heart feel. Layers of thoughts that finally culminated in something that has meaning for me. Maybe not for you, we both know our lives are separate and distinct. 

Even my husband had to ask which side was up in this party. (Tweet This)

My 3-part Party

So for today, put down your list of things to do. And think of one person at a time, it works for me, it helps me remember why they are are a part of me, especially when I rather cover it up. 

Finished, for the moment.

My 3-part Party

This is a handy tool to use in anything that you know you need to fall into. (Tweet This)

It helps me remember why they are a part of me, especially when I rather cover it up. (Tweet This)

 

Stay well, stay kind.

It's All About How We See It

People talk about walking meditation, and you might already know that I do some serious walking and non-thinking. The kind of walking that you're surprised when you get to your turn-around point and give thanks that your feet knew what they were doing, because your mind was somewhere else completely.

A mountain or a mound?

 

Shadows are my thing these days. I saw this one on my way out one morning. I marveled at the jagged, scary picture it painted. Frightening to climb and painful to land on. And yet, you need to know something. This mountain was hardly more than a mound. It's just the way it looked that day. (Tweet This)

Which of course made me think. How many obstacles do we circumvent, or shy away from entirely because they appear too daunting?

But if we took one step at a time, assessing our path, learning as we go, without doubt we will eventually climb over to the other side.

It's all about how we see it. (Tweet This)

 

 

Because these words are all about freeing my mind and yours. Here's a question for you.

Does anyone else see the gnome with the pointy nose, his shoulder hunched, and eyes closed finishing his morning meditation walk?

 

Morning Gnome

 Stay well, stay kind.

Create - the only thing you need to know: Word for the Year

Resting on a colander

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two birds were found with the rest of their family many years ago at a garage sale. They, as well as their siblings were feathered in downy red at that time. But over the years these two have changed.

They have aged, been moved around, dangled from the edges, and fallen...off the tree which we prop in a corner of our living room during the season.

They have grown weary over the years and needed an update. They inspired my word for the year, Create.

The rest of the bird family has been packed away for another year, these two however, remain staring at me. And in this project, you will see them enter this new year in a new form.

Trying to improve

Anyone who knows me is aware how I like to re-imagine things. On empty pages, and with torn bits of the past, pieced together to make something new. Fitting for a new year, don't you think?

If you decide to continue to follow along here, you will see a shift towards creation in my words. Over the past year (perhaps enforced by distancing), I have realized that creating is much more fun than consuming.

And in this attempt to Create, I ask you too to give yourself permission to do what needs doing this new year. 

You may choose to de-clutter (because space is a good thing), to re-read a favourite book (because you've grown in the meantime), to investigate a new skill (because, why not?).

 We all Create in different ways. (Tweet This)

 

A piece here, a piece there. Note the glue medium stuck to fingers.

Smart Husband suggested they could dry this way!

I will aim this year to Create as much as I can, out of words - a poem or a story, on canvas - with paper and markings from anywhere, ribbons, wool, textile donations anyone? Using things that others might call pieces of trash. 

Many of course will call this madness, but I name it Create. (Tweet This)

And now, here sit two new birdies. In this new year.   

The only thing you need to know?

Start small. Change takes time.

All the pieces of yourself count.

They make you, You.

(Tweet This)

May your Word of the Year guide you to a better you. (Tweet This)

 

Stay well, stay kind.

 

 

If you are looking for other ideas for your Word, you can read some of my previous choices.

Re-Write    How to choose your word     Open

Then choose your word at  One Word 365

 

It was a Love Story only to Them

she told me once that she had wanted to be free.

she'd play in the fields,  come in with dusk

walk barefoot through her cloud

throw paint at the sky

that even though

she was attached to his stable ways

his work in the sewers kept him dark (Tweet This)

the waste of other people's lives

dragged the filth around him

as much as he tried.

she could hose him off

and giggle as he shook the droplets

which she could catch on her fingers

and eat instead of a meal

she was never hungry for real food 

because the sun and the moon

the breeze and the shadows 

kept her full of the world.

It was a Love Story only to Them  Photo by Author

but she would stay by his side

always

knowing that when it ended

when it was black everywhere

she would hum, sing, flap her fragrant wings

and watch her life below.

and she did. 

It was a Love Story only to Them  Photo by Author

she saw.

(he climbed to the top of the hill

where she had said she could be the entire world (Tweet This)

and there

he'd shirk off the stink of his daily clothes

the stench of his life

and climb the tree

so he could be close to her.) 

 

Love is not the same for each of us. (Tweet This)

 

Stay well, stay kind.