Every new year some words choose me, like a magic spell to be cast on the year ahead. This year’s ensemble showed up as it’s own little poem of truth: Pure Love Innovates…
Expanding Consciousness
stop doing list: part 2 whereby i dictate what to stop
Acrylic nails do not help you be more successful. And my theory is that the world is rife with bottle-blondes who’d look much better as brunettes. Stop paying everyone else before you pay yourself. It will ease your stress and less stress = more time…
burning questions with kelly diels: cleavage + faith
What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?
Eat your mistakes whole
Before we spiritualize and shellac the error of our ways, it’s incredibly useful to put our faux pas under the microscope. It’s liberating. It’s grown up. It’s dignified. And best of all, once you see your mistakes for what they are–you are more certain to good and truly move on…
what your repulsions have to say about you
Knowing what does not work for you is a powerful tool for creating more of what does work for you. Measuring positive feelings against negative feelings is one of the constructive ways to use comparison, and it’s a great way to tune into our deeper truth…
Guilty desires… unite!
I used to have intense guilt for craving creative freedom–and then life forced me to go solo and I learned in one fell swoop that my guilty craving was a very divine calling–with all the rewards I was hankering for. Enough with feeling guilty for wanting to feel the way you want to feel…
you are the center of the universe
Consider that you radiate. At all times. Consider that what you’re feeling right now is rippling outward into a field of is-ness that anyone can dip their oar into. You are felt. You are heard. You are seen. If you were not here, the world would be different. Because of your presence, the universe is expanding…
you’re not that important
You’re one in a about six and half billion. A speck. A blink in the eye of God. A nano micro weeny zip in the eons of time and vastness of space. No one’s happiness really depends on you–no one’s. People can take care of themselves like they always have. How does it feel to consider that?…
the burning questions with gretchen rubin, mistress of happiness
You know Gretchen, right? She’s got one of the most popular blogs going, The Happiness Project. She’s classy and warm-hearted, and her work is helping people to not just consider being more happy, but to actually do something about it…
Celebrate your roots
Even if you intensely do not want to turn into your mother, there’s something beautiful about her that also lives in you. Whether it’s country clubs or country music that makes you want to hurl, there’s something about growing up in a radically different scene that’s added to your street smarts, your grace, your grit…
the divinity of the suck factor
We believe in the divinity of the suck factor. It’s an implicit, and lived, and affirmed understanding: that the universe trades up.
unfetter your happiness (you know you want to)
We feel rich with gratitude, we’re keenly aware of a true smile curled in our cells. We tend to live on the light side of things. But we don’t pronounce it.
wonder what their dream is
I dream of children being taught mindfulness in school, and a movement of conscious birth choices and parenting, and technologies that heal.
the ‘as in the beginning’ buddha rule
Each one of my soul sisters was love and bad laughs at first site. My best clients began with amazing conversations in bars and at conferences.
thought of the day: your innate perfection
Before you were told you were the runner up, and before you concluded that you needed improving upon, the original, gloriously sensational You was there.
what do you hope is true?
I hope the very clear vision I see of my son living a long and luscious life comes to fruition.
answers aren’t the answer
The truth is far easier to deal with than illusion, evasion or avoidance. You can wrap your arms around it. You can look it in the eye. You can take it to the bank.
morning elegance
“Her Morning Elegance” – from the album “The Opposite Side of the Sea”, written and produced by Oren Lavie. © 2009 A Quarter Past Wonderful.
the liberation of fred: keep your heart open and the wisdom will show up
I traveled a lot of miles, with a bag full of Big Questions to bring to the sanctuary of the Christ in The Desert Monastery. Me, in my well-abused rental car and straw hat, ready for a cosmic breakthrough, I wanted some divine answers, dammit. I hoped to hear something omniscient and awe-inspiring by the cemetery overlook, or to find an eagle feather on my canyon hike. Maybe a coyote or a monk would cross my path just when I asked my heart-bleeding question and that would be my Big Sign…
time management with the monks
Our hearts are the altars. Our days, when lived awake, are another chance to know the joys of what matters most.
what does learning feel like?
Great. Just what I want… to go camping in the same vicinity as some yahoos with a Winchester in their cooler.
birthday rituals
# 9. If the previous year was an amazing one, scribble out the reasons and burn the page. I think every birthday needs to involve fire of some kind… And of course, you can do all of these rituals any ol’ day, like tomorrow. Because life is short and there is no one alive who is Youer than You.
if you want to sing out, sing out
Well, if you want to say yes, say yes and if you want to say no, say no
‘sup to you.
A good one from Henry David Thoreau.
notes to my 20 year old self
Just yesterday I was ecstatically getting the hell out of high school, wearing shoulder pads and stilettos underneath my graduation gown. There are a few things I’d tell that version of me. Stuff like: If you don’t kiss girls in your twenties, you’ll probably never get around to trying it out. You should try it out.
inspired
Albert stopped me on the sidewalk this week. “I don’t want you to hear this in bits and pieces from the neighbours, but we just found out that Laurie has lung cancer.
remedies for discouragement
When you choose to be real, there will likely be tough choices and 11th-hour changes. There will be misunderstandings, uncomfortable silences, and sometimes, there will be isolation. When do you feel like giving up?
hot song: help i’m alive, metric
if my life is mine
what shouldn’t I do?
I get wherever I’m going
I get whatever I need
while the blood’s still flowing
how to be depressed
I learned a thousand subtle and mighty things about Life from those existential passages, but what I learned about depression itself is that, the more you resist it, the longer it lasts. When depressed, I find it’s best to just be depressed.
how have you changed?
I used to be angry and didn’t know why. Now I’m righteous but happy. In my twenties I WILLED it to happen. Now I allow it to happen. I used to need ritual. Now I just want the peace that lies beyond structure, even ritual.
