My most current audio message chat with a friend is talking about the next step or doing the next right things. But we both have no idea WTF they actually are. Okay, I should just speak for myself – I have no idea WTF they actually are. I try something here or there. Look back to what has worked before. I have been known to co-workers and friends as the one who just does things and sees what happens. (”What’s the worst that can happen?!”) As I do all that I remember all the stories stating that “the thing” –…
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not platitudes Whenever anyone told me to “Just be present in the moment,” I always wanted to present my fist to their face. I would never do it. Even up until (and even) now, I’ve never really acknowledged my anger about all those “Be Present. Live in the Moment. It’s all okay.” comments. I have decades of bottled up rage boiling over. I’ve been trying to throw my weight over the lid but it keeps leaking out scalding water that’s only hurting me. Which is never good but the usual story. It is one that I imagine millions of women…
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I’m in a burn it all down phase. Not because I’m ashamed of what I’m sharing or that I don’t want to keep sharing. It’s because I know I’m not being fully, honest, truthful, myself. It’s because I’m holding back (in so many places and ways – not just here.) Do I really need to keep up another charade that’s not completely me? Aren’t there enough of those me’s walking around the world? I envy, am in awe of and am scared to be those women who speak up courageously. Why get continuous death threats and have to take additional…
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With the internal (and external) pressure to be more social, I have to pause and consider: What is really good for me, what gives me comfort, and where do I feel good? These are difficult questions for me to answer. Sometimes I’ll be driving along and think “I just want to go home.” But not to my home, to a friend or family home, or to a home from childhood. I’m yearning for a place, a feeling that if I have felt it, I don’t remember. I have no context. I need that feeling of home just as much as…
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A new idea popped up for me in all my reading and scrolling: A social calendar. It’s not a new concept in any way. Thought it is one that I hadn’t thought of for a time. When I was first divorced, I was out and about all the time making connections, enjoying myself and just saying “YES” to all the things. Unsurprisingly, trying to keep up with even 1-2 groups of community proved too much for me. I was working on stepping back, when COVID stepped in and shut it all down for me. I had needed to be a…
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(and why that is hard as hell on a regular basis) Full disclosure: I was formed spiritually by Catholicism (so many versions!) in both my early years and then as a divorced single woman with no children. There is much that I find supportive and there is a WHOLE lot that I just can’t get behind. I don’t believe that I’m different from any other Catholic or any other person in any religion in this world. You do what is right no matter what. That’s what I learned though I’m not sure how. I imagined I read about it or…
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Or we might get boiled… Since I’m not under a rock (yet!) I am reading about slow living, going back to analog and all the things that are coming out of this conversation. I’m not jumping on the bandwagon – get stuck on a backroad in the middle of the night and I want all the cell phones. There really are many positives to technology – like the fact that I’m writing this here and you are reading it – we get to share and realize we are not as alone as we thought. I do think that these concepts…
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(when it feels like you can’t for all the reasons) Four years ago, I took a RYT 200 Yoga Teacher Training Course. I have never wanted to be a teacher (of anything, yoga or otherwise). Still, for some reason, I had this feeling that this was what I needed to do with my time (and $$) that summer. So I spent almost every weekend that summer in a yoga studio, taking a comprehensive yoga teacher training course. I have always loved and attempted to practice yoga and started when I was in college. Back then it was VHS. Then I…
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There is talk around me of one of those January challenges this year – actually there are plenty of them. But the one I’m talking about for this post is the movement and outside one. 2 miles outside everyday – all in one sitting. This article (really the picture) struck me years ago. Really it was the colors in the sky that pulled me. Only then did I realize that the prettiest lighting, the most jewel toned and pastel skies happen only in the winter. And I had to be outside to experience it. Over the last three years (since…
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(How to Stop and Assess) So, how do you stop and actually listen? Even if you don’t feel like you’re doing it right or doing it well or even doing it at all? What you do is you take the time and see what comes from it. And since I would never talk about something I don’t practice, here’s my example: I took the time this past month to do some checking in. Some of it was scheduled, some of it, life schedules it for you, whether or not you want it. I have considered November as a cleanup time.…