The Cure for Anything
is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea
Category Wise Words
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This is How We Heal
I awoke this morning to a total shock. And then I wondered just how naïve I really am – and how much of a bubble I live in. How did I not see this coming? How did we not see this coming?
I am painfully aware that I live within a bubble of privilege. There are so many out there –my friends of color, of different ethnicities and nationalities and religions, my LGBGT friends, my friends with terminal illness or disability, my friends who live in poverty – who do not have the benefit of that bubble.
This vile, misogynistic, racist man has been elected president of our country. Which means that the majority of the people around us believe this behavior to be acceptable. Which means that we collectively excuse and condone it. Which means that we’ve accepted the culture we’ve been raised in and we’re okay with shining a light on it and still refusing to shut it down.
The America I know, the America I believe in, is better than this. We are better than this man and his party built on a platform of divisiveness and hatred. We are better than this rhetoric of division and misogyny and racism.
Buddha once said “I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.” No matter what world we wake to tomorrow, we have work to do. We have compassion to spread, we have kindness to spread. We have friends to protect, we have families to support. We have understanding to practice, patience to build. We have life, so much life, and we have to shine bright lights on those whose lives and the importance of them, have taken a backseat for far too long. We have rights to fight for and so many people to love. So much light to chase. We cannot heal a wound, a split down our center, by ignoring it, nor by running away from it. Only though the work we must complete can we heal, only by giving our hearts and kindness to all those that need it most, only by loving, openly, wildly, freely, can we progress. At our centers, we are all the same and we must not forget this. We cannot abandon hope when the lights dim low, we cannot sacrifice our tenderness when grace goes unanswered. Love. More. ❤️
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Like a Shot
Well, not a literal punch. I’m a lover, not a fighter. But I can pack a “punch” just the same. 😉
One of my many favorite Shakespearean quotes:
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It’s Time
“I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:
I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go.Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever.
Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through you. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”
~ Brené Brown
I love Brené Brown. The way she explains things speaks to me. Oh, and I love my coping mechanisms and my armor too. I look at them and think about how they got me through all the hard times, how they protected me, how they quite literally saved my life more than a few times. Even though I no longer need them, and they no longer serve me in any way, I can’t lay them down. I know that’s what I need to do. My yesterdays have already used up too much of my todays.
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Now
I need this reminder.
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Continuation
I love how the author Cheryl Strayed summed up Mother’s Day: I know Mother’s Day is a joy to many of you. I know it’s a giant suckbag of sorrow for others of you. I know some of you are indifferent to it. I know some of you have wonderful mothers and you get to pick out the perfect card for her and take her to brunch and give her a bouquet of flowers and others of you are alone and weeping while watching your monstrously sad faces in the bathroom mirror, wondering why your mom had to die or be a drug addict or be mentally ill or be such an inexplicable evil shit to you. I know some of you desperately want to become mothers and can’t and aren’t and will never be and some of you have zero interest in becoming mothers and you feel sickeningly suffocated by a world that equates womanhood with motherhood and some of you ARE mothers and you love it and you treasure this day because finally someone picked out a card for you and took you to brunch and gave you a bouquet of flowers. And some of you are mothers but your children are dead. Or lost to you in another way. I know, for most of us, it’s a holiday that will change in meaning to us over time. Whatever it is, I want to say I know it’s there and it’s real and it’s true because it’s YOURS. I’m with you, wherever it is you are, in heart.❤️
I’m so blessed to have a good, loving mother who is still living and a son with whom I have a close and wonderful relationship. I do my best every day to appreciate that fact.
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A Beautiful Heart
Truth. Plain and simple. <3 -
Welcome, New Year!
I love these questions! However, I’m not going to answer them here, because some things are too personal even for my “private” blog. My favorite question is number 5, when did I feel most alive? I think the answer to that question can tell us a lot about what is most important in life. I actually picture this precise moment in my head over and over again, it was that profound.
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Lipstick, Mascara
Courtesy of my sweet friend Edward, who always knows the right thing to say at the right time, and who always makes me laugh, even when I feel like crying. (I❤️ you!)
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Choice
Remembering what I already know to be true. I just had to remind myself. 🙂
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Lakota Prayer
Teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear, and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.
American Indian Lakota Prayer
I love this. It’s simple and beautiful. I need to hang it up where I’ll see it every day. I’ve always had a thing for feathers. When I was a little girl, I’d gather them up, in hopes of making myself an Indian headdress. Alas, that never quite worked out. All day long, I stuff my pockets with trinkets and treasures that I’d find on my adventures. Feathers, interesting rocks, pretty leaves. Sometimes I’d dig with my grandfather in his garden. We’d find old marbles, the occasional arrowhead, and once we dug up an old horse shoe. In retrospect, I wonder if he’d secretly planted some of those things for me to find.
It’s no wonder that I’m still happiest when I’m outside in the fresh air.
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Two Things
Today I know two things to be true:
I love wearing black. Looks good in the winter (and spring, and fall) when I’m pale white, and looks good in the summer when I’m (somewhat) tan. My mother does not like me to wear black and often says that I’d look so pretty, if only I’d wear a color sometimes. 😉
Shakira may have said hips don’t lie, but Edith was right about the hands. My eyes are always drawn to a beautiful pair of hands.
When I was young I remember one of my friends asking me what was wrong with my dad’s hand. I told her that nothing was wrong. Years before I was even born, 3 of the fingers on his right hand were blown off in an accident. Of course, I consciously knew that he only had a pinky and ring finger, but I never gave it much thought. He could do everything that someone with ten fingers could do, and then some. If I had a knot in a delicate gold chain or a splinter in my foot, I’d go right to daddy. Without ever saying a word, he showed me everyday that through persistence, effort, and a lot of hard work, you can overcome just about anything. As an adult, that has served me so well.
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The Present Moment
“This moment is not life waiting to happen, goals waiting to be achieved, words waiting to be spoken, connections waiting to be made, regrets waiting to evaporate, aliveness waiting to be felt, enlightenment waiting to be gained. No. Nothing is waiting. This is it. This moment is life.”
“Why does it often take extreme life situations to bring back an awareness of the magic and mystery of life? Why do we often wait until we’re about to die before discovering a deep gratitude for life as it is? Why do we exhaust ourselves seeking love, acceptance, fame, success, or spiritual enlightenment in the future? Why do we work or meditate ourselves into the grave? Why do we postpone life? Why do we hold back from it? What are we looking for exactly? What are we waiting for? What are we afraid of? Will the life we long for really come in the future? Or is it always closer than that?”
― Jeff Foster, The Deepest AcceptanceWhat’s here and now is all there is . For years, I’ve struggled with this fact. Most of us know this to be true in our heads, but integrating it into our daily living is another thing. It’s a practice, one that must stay a part of our awareness if we hope to be released from suffering. Anger, resentment, fear, jealously, worry, doubt—these are all things that can feel very real to us when we are experiencing them. However, they are of the mind, and just excuses to hang on to yesterday or to live in tomorrow.
I’ve made some mistakes in the past, some huge ones at that. “If only I had done things differently” used to play in my head over and over. I finally realized that way of thinking was taking me away from my present experience. When I live in the past or future, I miss out on the freedom and peace in the now. The Vacuum Law of Prosperity states that “two things cannot take up the same space, so we must let something go before the new can enter.” That is to say there must be a space for the incoming blessings of the here and now before you’re able to receive them. Clear out all the old junk, make peace with it and let it go. The more I’m able to do that, the more I’m enjoying my life now. Simple everyday things bring me immense joy when I’m actually present and fulling experiencing them.
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Beauty and Melancholy
Expert in the “side eye” for 45 years and counting! Even as a newborn baby I had a hint of that impish grin of mine, the one that says “I’m enjoying what this world is throwing at me”. I still have it, and if you know me well, you just might get a glimpse if that grin.It was my birthday yesterday and one of my co-workers asked if I was 34 and holding. Hell, no. I own each and every one of my years. I agree with the quote “Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.” I am blessed with each day I’m given. I don’t regret any of them, even the bad days. They’re brought me to the place where I am. I’m content. I’m sitting here in the sunshine, reading a book. It doesn’t take much to make me happy because I’ve learned to appreciate that small joys in life. That’s the beautiful wisdom that comes with age. No, my life isn’t perfect. It never will be. That’s okay. There are things I want to change, and most of them will come, will time and effort on my part. I’m a glorious work in progress, like all of us.
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Instructions for Living a Life
I love the work of Mary Oliver and this quote is beautiful. It’s so true. If you simply pay attention, life will show you a multitude of amazing things, both big and small, every day. Today was no exception. Reading in bed this morning, sun streaming through the windows, a steamy cup of café con leche on the nightstand. (I like a pinch of cinnamon in mine.) Lunch with my son at his favorite restaurant. Laughing with my favorite waiter who always calls me Señorita. Excellent conversation, because the only child of a single mom learns the art at an early age. Now that he’s an adult, I learn much from him. A walk in the village to the local outdoor outfitters. He wants to get back into camping, and I was eyeing the kayaks. Maybe this spring. There was a store mascot dog and a fire pit out front, both which I thoroughly enjoyed. Finally, and intense workout using a new method that I just learned, Eccentric Isometrics. Basically, it involves performing the negative phase of a lift in a controlled manner and holding the stretched position for a given duration. I love learning something new, and I love that what was once difficult is getting easier and easier. Now I’m headed for a soak in a hot bath with a glass of wine.
Live your life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell it. It’s that simple.
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Muscle
Muscle is created by repeatedly lifting things that have been designed to weigh us down. So when your shoulders feel heavy, stand up straight and lift your chin – call it exercise. When the world crumbles around you, you have to look at the wreckage and then build a new one out of all the pieces that are still here. Remember, you are still here. The human heart beats approximately four thousand times per hour. Each pulse, each throb, each palpitation is a trophy engraved with the words ‘You are still alive.’ You are still alive. Act like it.”
-Rudy Francisco -
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Hello, 2015!
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I don’t know how the idea started, but it seems like a good way to set yourself up for failure. I don’t think anyone needs more of that. Besides, every day is a new beginning, a opportunity for a fresh start, not just January 1. There’s nothing magical about that date.
Instead, I’ve actively chosen to be grateful for who I am and what I have right now. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like some things in my life to be different– I do. I’m actively taking steps to make those things happen, each and every day. Tiny, baby steps. It is amazing to me how challenging it can be to let go of things, even when those things are the root of our suffering. I’ve gotten so much better at that over the years, but it is an on-going process.
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” ~ This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
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Compassionate Abiding
This is a great article on Pema Chodron and letting go. Sometimes I have a hard time giving things the space that they need.
Despite facing a variety of painful obstacles and difficulties in life, people are often hesitant to describe their experiences as “suffering.” It’s typically a word reserved for the most extreme tragedies — war, poverty, death — but American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön says that each of us knows what it is like to suffer.
Spiritually, Chödrön uses this word to describe times that are disruptive, that give us anxiety or despair. It can be anything from the loss of a job to a family conflict, but the common thread is clear: “Suffering” refers to anything unwanted that makes you uncomfortable.
“In another way, it’s sometimes translated as ‘discontent,'” Chödrön says.
So how can we best deal with our discontent, or suffering? Chödrön says that we must first accept that what has happened has really happened, and not resist it or push it away. Then, she says, practice this simple visualization exercise.
“You breathe it in,” Chödrön says. “It’s as if you breathe it into your heart and your heart just gets bigger and bigger. Every time you breathe in, the heart gets bigger and bigger, so that no matter how bad it feels, you just give it more space. So when you breathe in, you’re open to it, I guess you could say. And then when you breathe out, you just send out a lot of space.”
This exercise opens you up emotionally and spiritually, but can also initiate what feels like a physical change as well.
“Sometimes I say, ‘What does your heart feel like?’ People will say, ‘It feels like a rock.’ What does your stomach feel like? ‘It feels like a knot. It’s as if my whole body was clenched… because I’m so miserable,'” Chödrön says. “So, breathe in and let that heart open. Let the stomach open.”
Do six deep in-breaths, she suggests. It’s a practice that Chödrön calls “compassionate abiding,” and with it comes an enlightened view of the world’s connectivity: You are not alone.
“When you breathe in, you can recognize that all over the world — right now and in the past and in the future — people are going to feel exactly what you’re feeling now. A feeling of being rejected. The feeling of being unloved. The feeling of insecurity. The feeling of fear. Rage.” Chödrön says. “Human beings have always felt this and always will. And so you breathe in for everyone that they could welcome it, that they could say, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’ Embrace it.”
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Hello December
I, for one, am very ready to tear off a page on the calendar to begin a new month. I’m at a point where I just don’t know about anything anymore. Maybe I’ve always been at that point, but I’m just now realizing it. Perhaps this is a good thing, as it allows me to let go of beliefs that no longer serve me.
HOLDING ON TO OUR BELIEFSIn Taoism there’s a famous saying that goes, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the ultimate Tao.” Another way you could say that, although I’ve never seen it translated this way, is, “As soon as you begin to believe in something, then you can no longer see anything else.” The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Holding on to beliefs limits our experience of life. That doesn’t mean that beliefs or ideas or thinking is a problem; the stubborn attitude of having to have things be a particular way, grasping on to our beliefs and thoughts, all these cause the problems. To put it simply, using your belief system this way creates a situation in which you choose to be blind instead of being able to see, to be deaf instead of being able to hear, to be dead rather than alive, asleep rather than awake.
-Pema Chodron
One thing I do know is that Peanuts, and especially Snoopy, always makes me smile.
