Spring is Springing
and life is vibrantly shouting for joy.
According to the calendar, the 1000-days Winter is officially over. Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hopefully, the weather agrees and acts like it.
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The Wisdom of Many Winters
Are you Slowing Down enough?
I’m living in an endless winter. We had our first snow on November 3rd this year. The backyard is buried under at least 3 feet of it. It’s beautiful. And it keeps on coming down.
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Whose voice inside you is the loudest?
Listening on the inside can be a really good idea. A useful practice. Beneficial. Life changing.
But to whom are you listening? Whose voice is the loudest, the most insistent, in there.
And from where are you listening? The mind can twist everything little thing it hears to fit its sneaky little agenda of keeping you trapped in a cage without a door.
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“Sometimes all it takes is a tiny shift of perspective to see something familiar in a totally new light.” ~Dan Brown
The spoon in the pot full of water in the kitchen sink…the handle had a bend in it. An angle, maybe a 120 degree angle. An angle that wasn’t supposed to be there.
It was such a powerful optical illusion. What made it bend? Why I could see it and my breakfast companion could not?
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"If you have gone one day in your life without laughing, you really need to consider what you're doing."
This sentence was scribbled on a torn scrap of paper by one of my 3rd year Spanish students, Nina. She handed me the folded note as she left class that Spring morning - May 17, 2010 to be exact!
The author of this wisdom? Yours truly.
I often started class by sharing with my students how much fun life is and how we can always bring that fun into our learning environment. More than 20 years-in-education later, I still believe that with all my heart.
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A New Year, A New You
A New Year, Allowing for Change ??
A New Year, Opening to Possibility ??
Here Go ‘Round Again ??
Trying to think of a catchy title is a little off-putting. I’ve been fortunate enough to take a couple weeks off, post-holiday season. It’s been quite lovely. So nice, in fact, that getting back to the keyboard is a might painful.
Maybe you feel like that too? Or maybe you love being back to your routine, your pattern?
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Clearing the Clutter
Finally. I just submitted my application packet for the Nevada Woman Owned Small Business of the Year! (I was nominated by one of my mentors in the Small Business Development offices.) How exciting.
And Yay! One more fun thing checked off the list.
And in so doing, I’ve cleared up a lot of mental space.
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Locus of Control
What might you give up in order to enjoy peace with your teenager? This question might be scary! It also holds the keys to peace and harmony in the home.
“Let it go” is now a popular phrase, and song. It’s a very useful one too.
The trick is knowing what to let go of, what to give up.
Not “One More Thing”
Just like you, I want your life to be easier – less stressful, less complicated. I want you to feel alive and joyfully engaged in your tasks.
I want the corners of your eyes to crinkle more often, the corners of your mouth to lift as they let go of the weight of too much _____________ (fill in the blank for yourself.)
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Unconditional Love
And here we come back around to unconditional love.
Sometimes this topic gives me a stomach ache. Sometimes it makes my heart soar. And sometimes it just makes me quiet and completely at peace.
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Wait. Wait…just a sec.
My surfing has led me to a place of utter disbelief. Followed quickly by a sense of confusion. My mind is jumbled as I try to sort out what’s going on in a sector of our society.
Here are some of the notes I took while searching for current parent needs, parenting trends, and FAQs regarding parenthood:
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To transform or not…
I do love the idea shared by my Buddhist teacher when I was on that path of life. He often reminded us that “It’s like this now.”
Let the truth of that soak in for a minute.
Transforming Teenagers…Is that a good idea?
I keep wondering how to approach the world of parenting and educating teens. Since I’ve been out of the classroom, many things have changed: the nature of children and teens, the structure of school, the social expectations placed on today’s teenagers, the pressure to “get it right”, the desires to be influencers. Among others.
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YOUTH Positive, Changing Directions
And, we’re still in the game. It has been tricky, to be sure. But here we are, moving forward with some exciting new opportunities and options.
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I’ve now come to really know, like “conocer” versus “saber” in the Spanish language, that perspective taking is an on-going practice - of all things, within all relationships. We must continually be taking perspective, letting go of the idea that I know what’s happening in any given situation, that I understand another and what they’re thinking or how they see the world.
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Things in the world are serious right now. And we should take them seriously. We are experiencing things now that we, as people alive on this planet right now, have not ever experienced. In the history of humanity, others have endured crisis similar to this, but not us. This is new to us.
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I know you’ve marveled at many sunsets and sunrises; have soaked in the beauty of the clear, hot sunlight of the perfect summer day; and at times, have thought “I need a camera!” as the sunlight turns to a burnished golden liquid on those rare occasions when the molecules of moisture in the air…
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At times of crisis in the world, your world or the Big World, it can be super easy to forget about self-regulation. We can act out in anxiety and fear. We can say things from our amygdala. We can really be an a$$ if we’re not careful.
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Madness/anger, more a crisis of thinking and perspective than anything else, is brought on by an inability to soothe the amygdala and come into the rational mind. Maybe the chaos is a type of brain-stem storm?
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Austin, Texas. A place unto itself. They have a motto, or a town logo, “Keep Austin Weird”. There’s even a website, keepaustinweird.com It’s not as weird as they make it out to be. At least not where I was. Probably, a weird side awaits in the shadows; a side that I should visit next time I’m there.
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