The Month of March - Connect to Your Community
When you live in the midwest, the go-to theme for March is spring, growth, new things to come. You struggle to make it through cold, gray winters and it's pretty much all you can think about. This year, however, we had the most amazing, mild, somewhat sunny winter I can remember. Do I dare admit that it was easy this year? When I moved back to Chicago from San Francisco a decade ago, I cited one of my top reasons being the collective hardship of getting through these winters with everyone else around you, which creates an automatic sense of community. While I never experienced a major earthquake during my time in San Fran, there was nothing that happened in nature there that encouraged an unspoken bond with the people around me. Maybe because of the missing sense of collective survival, or maybe just because of cultural differences, I also felt just slightly detached from everyone else. Occasionally, I'd meet someone from the midwest and we'd commiserate about the cheek kiss greetings and how much we missed a good, solid hug hello. I was grateful to have three of my childhood best friends living in the bay area at the same time I did for my down home connection with them. So, this year, instead of the predictable "spring is coming" inspired theme, I'm thinking a lot about community.
From family of origin to family of choice, there are people we feel connected to. There are also ideals and interests and hobbies when shared that help us feel connected. I encourage you to build and nurture your sense of community this month, and I'll do the same!
* Happy to say I've already started by having lunch with two new girlfriends today and having a family-of-friends over for early kid-friendly dinner and then two golden oldies over for after-the-kids-are-down dinner tomorrow night. Hadn't even thought of these plans when I came up with this idea, but I'm sure these get-togethers are part of the inspiration for the theme.
How do you connect to community? Who or what is your community?
Grateful
I forget how lucky I am to work in a field where I am surrounded by positive energy, creative ideas and people trying to live life to the fullest. I take for granted my level of self-awareness and mindfulness, which I am continually challenging myself on. I just wanted to take a second to write this.
If you are reading this blog and feeling like you don't even know where to start to "look within," then know that you are not alone. Daniel Siegel calls it "mindsight" - knowing your own mind, and the minds of others. I like to think about knowing your mind as paying attention to the running thoughts that are always there, rolling past as if on a scrolling marquee, narrating your experiences, your feelings, your thoughts, your self-judgments. When you can start to tune into that "thinking mind" and notice the trail of thoughts that inhabit your brain, you will start to know your mind. And then, once you have mindsight, you can do two very crucial things to happiness. One, you can stop and/or change the thoughts that are in your thinking mind. Two, you can detach from your thought process all together in order to be fully present.
Maybe I will continually write notes like this, both to clarify my own thoughts about how to teach mindfulness, and to help readers who are new to this idea. Please share your comments and feedback!
If you are reading this blog and feeling like you don't even know where to start to "look within," then know that you are not alone. Daniel Siegel calls it "mindsight" - knowing your own mind, and the minds of others. I like to think about knowing your mind as paying attention to the running thoughts that are always there, rolling past as if on a scrolling marquee, narrating your experiences, your feelings, your thoughts, your self-judgments. When you can start to tune into that "thinking mind" and notice the trail of thoughts that inhabit your brain, you will start to know your mind. And then, once you have mindsight, you can do two very crucial things to happiness. One, you can stop and/or change the thoughts that are in your thinking mind. Two, you can detach from your thought process all together in order to be fully present.
Maybe I will continually write notes like this, both to clarify my own thoughts about how to teach mindfulness, and to help readers who are new to this idea. Please share your comments and feedback!
Thinking of Dr. King
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
MLK
I am trying to channel Dr. King today. Fighting internal negative energy while contending with 8+ months of sleep deprivation is constantly trying. I give in to the darkness too much.
Love and light. Love and light.
MLK
I am trying to channel Dr. King today. Fighting internal negative energy while contending with 8+ months of sleep deprivation is constantly trying. I give in to the darkness too much.
Love and light. Love and light.
January: A Month of Going Within
With the winter solstice in December came the sense of quieting my mind and turning inward. Inspired by the renewal process of plant life where I live in the cold midwestern US, I find comfort in the way the outer growth slows or stops and the deep roots sustain life in the winter with the promise of buds in the spring. I like to think of myself as going within too, letting my soul sway into my inner depths as the winter season quiets my mind.
You are invited along this month. Move your consciousness toward a sense of going within.
Meditation:
I choose to go enjoyably inward.
Action Plan:
- Deep breathing every day (using "Mindfulness Bell" app every hour, and I will take a deep breath each time I look at a clock)
- Electronics curfew at 10:30 every night so that I can move into silence and presence well before it's time to sleep.
- Only eat foods that nurture me.
- make more art. Do it now.
Please share your ideas, meditations and actions too!
Loved sitting in the unusual warming January sun while very quickly painting during the baby's naptime!
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A New Year of Positive Intention
2012, I am so glad you're here.
I am excited to capture the fleeting moments of the year in a mindful and present way. My hope is to use this blog to shape my consciousness as the year unfolds. I see abundance and joy on the way for us all.
My hope is to set a positive intention for each month, posting early in each month to describe the intention, and then later in the month to document how it's unfolding in daily life. Please send notes, photos, art, dreams and any other bits of story from where you are and what you are experiencing as it relates to living with positive intentions. As soon as we can get my basement art studio functional, I'll be posting on a more visual sister blog, Intention Arts. (More on that later.)
If you have any inspiration or intentions that you'd like to send, I'd love to hear from you! I'm forming a loose foundation for the twelve intentions this year and would love to have a more interactive dialogue as part of my creative process of coming up with the monthly intentions.
I'll post the first month's intention soon! Thanks for being out there!
I am excited to capture the fleeting moments of the year in a mindful and present way. My hope is to use this blog to shape my consciousness as the year unfolds. I see abundance and joy on the way for us all.
My hope is to set a positive intention for each month, posting early in each month to describe the intention, and then later in the month to document how it's unfolding in daily life. Please send notes, photos, art, dreams and any other bits of story from where you are and what you are experiencing as it relates to living with positive intentions. As soon as we can get my basement art studio functional, I'll be posting on a more visual sister blog, Intention Arts. (More on that later.)
If you have any inspiration or intentions that you'd like to send, I'd love to hear from you! I'm forming a loose foundation for the twelve intentions this year and would love to have a more interactive dialogue as part of my creative process of coming up with the monthly intentions.
I'll post the first month's intention soon! Thanks for being out there!
Taking a Break
March 31, 2011
As you probably know, I am pregnant right now, and at 33 weeks, it's getting to that time where I need to set limits. I am going to take a break from this blog as I go inward to nest, connect and emotionally and spiritually prepare for this baby to come. I'm also getting to a vulnerable point in the pregnancy regarding my history of HELLP Syndrome. If you'd like to stay in touch, my pregnancy blog is here:
http://hopefulafterhellp.blogspot.com/
Here's to a birth of positive intention! :)
Amy
As you probably know, I am pregnant right now, and at 33 weeks, it's getting to that time where I need to set limits. I am going to take a break from this blog as I go inward to nest, connect and emotionally and spiritually prepare for this baby to come. I'm also getting to a vulnerable point in the pregnancy regarding my history of HELLP Syndrome. If you'd like to stay in touch, my pregnancy blog is here:
http://hopefulafterhellp.blogspot.com/
Here's to a birth of positive intention! :)
Amy
How Vulnerability Leads to Connection
If you didn't get a chance to watch the video that I posted (and still highly recommend that you watch), here's the short of it. Brene Brown has been studying connection, empathy, shame and vulnerability for the last decade. She's come up with a way of framing her work that I like, and it's based on research. It goes like this:
If you think of a spectrum, with Connection and Empathy on one side, and Shame and Fear on the other, then Vulnerability is the dial that moves between them. Here. I'll make a quick drawing:
Brene talks about "whole-hearted people" allowing themselves to be vulnerable, as in open, self-aware, and comfortable with their imperfections. So within her framework, connection can only happen when you move toward whole-heartedness in this way. If you exist in your own thoughts, caught up in fears or in shame, it will be very difficult to feel connection.
I've been trying to dissect myself within this framework over the past week. I don't come from a very shame-based place, so I have been focusing on fear. What fears am I aware that I sink into, as well as what fears may be lurking within my unconscious. I do feel like I am pretty vulnerable, as in open, self-aware and accepting of my imperfections. But in my quest for continued self-awareness/vulnerability and increased connection, I am still searching for what else I need to work on. Am I stuck along the spectrum on not fully accepting all of my imperfections? Are there imperfections that I fear admitting? Or is it just that I fear admitting imperfections at all? I am acutely aware of my overcompensating need to be competent, capable, and smart. So if I can let myself be seen as imperfect, if I can tell the truth about myself faster, will I feel more connected?
And a side note I've been thinking about is that she talks about the message we need to give our children, "You are imperfect. Human life is filled with struggles. But you are worthy of love and belonging." I think I got that last part, but not so sure about the first two statements... the root of my problem being imperfect? Seriously, comment.
Great Talk about Connection
One of my clients recently sent me this video, and I thought you might like to watch it. It's about 20 minutes long and well worth the time. (If you haven't heard of the TED Conferences, they're totally inspiring and you can find free videos of many of the talks online.) From the site, "Brene Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TEDxHouston, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share."
:Connection: is the Theme of the Month
In our society, December is often a time of connection. We spend more time with family, get together with friends, and some of us even send real mail! Since my HELLP experience/ birth trauma in December of 2007, I've struggled with my sense of connection to others during this time of year and especially around the winter holidays. I've really turned into a Grinch, actually, finding it much easier to dismiss the parties, cards, shopping and gift-giving scene as a parade of superficiality rather than to be really honest with myself and see that my dismissal of these things is related to my own struggle with connection during this time of year.
Probably the last time I can remember feeling connected in December was the first Christmas after I had my son, just days after leaving the hospital. We were having holiday dinner with my husband's family and my mother-in-law asked us to go around the table and say something nice to the person to our left. It was a sweet thing. When it was my turn, I sat frozen, hormonal and sweaty, with a squirming pink newborn on my lap, a nursing cover awkwardly placed over my shoulder, and looked over to the person on my left. My husband. My partner with whom I had just shared the scariest time of our lives. The days leading up to that moment flashed in my memory like a train passing too fast, and too close. I looked at Brian. The person who stayed by my side for 30 hours of labor, who feared for my life, and who mothered our son on his own for the first 7 hours of Gavin's life. Only to sleep on a thin mat on a hospital floor for the next 6 nights, never leaving his wife and son. The man who wore a handmade necklace of birth beads over his scrubs while our baby was lifted from my lifeless abdomen in the next room. Who ran, scared, with the nurse down the hall with our minutes-old baby, pushing his cart to the nursery, barely aware if we'd had a boy or a girl, let alone how many fingers and toes there were to count. The man who fought tirelessly to recapture any of our intended birth plans, bringing a breast pump into the recovery room where I wasn't yet out of the fog of anesthesia, pumping me as best he could on his own, trying to get precious mother's milk from my body... I just sat at that surreal Christmas table, with its casseroles and cheerful garland, looking at my husband, with his whole family watching me, and waiting to hear me say something nice. "Something nice" would never capture the way I felt about him in that moment. Connected by our souls. By this indescribable experience we'd just had. By this tiny baby who had survived. All I could do was cry. I cried and cried right there at the table, the only expression of the deep love I felt for him. He held my hand. I held our baby. I couldn't even talk. That's the last time I remember feeling really, really connected around the holidays.
This year my disconnection was so blatantly obvious for Christmas that I actually forgot to bring gifts, both purchased and made, to my mother-in-law's in Oklahoma City. Even with a three year old just starting to get the whole Santa concept, I couldn't muster any holiday spirit. I let myself make an excuse, yet again, for why I would wait to send holiday cards until the new year. It's just been easier that way.
But I know it's not good for me. I am usually a very connected person. The whole rest of the year I merrily reach out to others and seek connections and nurturing relationships. Because I am so connected the rest of the time, I can feel the negative impact that my December disconnection has on me. Starting this blog in the first place was a way to connect. I crave it. I thrive on it. I think all of us do. So it's only fitting that the first monthly theme in this new year is Connection.
More to come...
Happy New Year of Positive Intention!
Thank you so much for all of your love and support with my blog last year! Your end-of-the-year emails and comments warmed my heart and validated my intent to share this journey with others.
Writing this blog last year was so positive and helped me feel so connected to you, to myself, and to my constant quest for mindfulness. I want to continue on into this new year with a few tweaks. I realized a couple months into my first year of blogging about positive intention that having a new focus every week was just too much. I didn't get to really engage in the mantras and actions every week and often felt rushed. So this year, I will choose one theme for each month. I also felt my right-brained-ness struggling with the structure of weekly posts and having mantras and actions. I need a more free-flowing, creative approach, so that's what will happen this year. (Whatever that will be..) I loved that part of the blog was about donating to the Preeclampsia Foundation and I appreciate those of you who donated (to PF or to your own cause) along with me. I do want to make charitable giving an ongoing part of this blog, so will include that on a monthly basis as well as opposed to just being something I do when I don't post or follow through with an action. I hope you will come along with me again this year, and I also encourage you to interact more in the comments section. I'd love your ideas for monthly themes - either something you would like to see repeated from last year or something new. Also, I would love to have some guest bloggers this year! Step forward any time!!!
I'm officially starting tomorrow, or sometime this week. ;)
Happy New Year!
xo
Until Next Year
I have been quiet lately. Not that you've had time to read my posts with all of the holiday chaos that engulfs us. So you probably don't mind. I've been buried under an avalanche of challenges, but have come out the other side, feeling centered and even a tiny smidge excited about the holidays, which is very unusual for me!
I decided to take a break for the rest of 2010. My trauma anniversary came and went and things are good. I feel very present-moment-oriented. In the new year, if all goes as intended, I will continue this blog, but will post monthly instead of weekly. It was just way too much. Too many posts, too many weekly ideas to come up with, and too short of a time to focus on them. If there were any mantras or actions that you really liked this past year, please let me know and I'll work on building on them in the 2011. And I'll be making my donation to the Preeclampsia Foundation after this post. Maybe you'll also consider making a donation to support an organization committed to raising funding for research and awareness for a condition that kills one mother every seven minutes and kills half a million fetuses and newborns every year.
Looking back at my first post, I feel good about where I've ended up with my intentions..
I want to really live life. I want to feel and share the love that is all around me. I want to be in the present moment. I want to notice and appreciate the gratitude that fills my heart when I actually stop and notice everything that is good around and within me. These things are what I call living with positive intention.
I am doing this now. Thank you for your love and support along this journey, and I can't wait to continue on in the new year!
Week 47 | Eat Mindfully | Take Longer to Chew Your Food
Well, since eating has been on my mind excessively for exactly 15 weeks now, and with Thanksgiving coming up this week, I figured it would be good to focus a weekly intention on eating. I have long been aware of the concept of "mindful eating," and I sometimes (inconsistently) do my own version of mindful eating, stopping to pay attention to the food that I'm putting in my mouth - thinking about where it came from, how it tastes, what the texture is.. But I only just now stopped to read information on the website for the Center for Mindful Eating. They say it way better than I would, so I will leave it at that. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :)
The Center for Mindful Eating has created the Principles of Mindful Eating. These principles are intended to guide professionals who are interested in mindful eating. The Principles of Mindful Eating are free to reproduce and distribute for educational purposes.
The Principles are also available as a PDF to download and print. (The Principles of Mindful Eating - PDF 110kb)
Principles of Mindfulness:
• Mindfulness is deliberately paying attention, non-judgmentally.
• Mindfulness encompasses both internal processes and external environments.
• Mindfulness is being aware of what is present for you mentally, emotionally and physically in each moment.
• With practice, mindfulness cultivates the possibility of freeing yourself of reactive, habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and acting.
• Mindfulness promotes balance, choice, wisdom and acceptance of what is.
• Mindfulness is deliberately paying attention, non-judgmentally.
• Mindfulness encompasses both internal processes and external environments.
• Mindfulness is being aware of what is present for you mentally, emotionally and physically in each moment.
• With practice, mindfulness cultivates the possibility of freeing yourself of reactive, habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and acting.
• Mindfulness promotes balance, choice, wisdom and acceptance of what is.
Mindful Eating is:
• Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing
opportunities that are available through food preparation and consumption by respecting your own inner wisdom.
• Choosing to eat food that is both pleasing to you and nourishing to your body by using all your senses to explore, savor and taste.
• Acknowledging responses to food (likes, neutral or dislikes) without judgment.
• Learning to be aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decision to begin eating and to stop eating.
• Allowing yourself to become aware of the positive and nurturing
opportunities that are available through food preparation and consumption by respecting your own inner wisdom.
• Choosing to eat food that is both pleasing to you and nourishing to your body by using all your senses to explore, savor and taste.
• Acknowledging responses to food (likes, neutral or dislikes) without judgment.
• Learning to be aware of physical hunger and satiety cues to guide your decision to begin eating and to stop eating.
Someone Who Eats Mindfully:
• Acknowledges that there is no right or wrong way to eat but varying degrees of awareness surrounding the experience of food.
• Accepts that his/her eating experiences are unique.
• Is an individual who by choice, directs his/her awareness to all aspects of food and eating on a moment-by-moment basis.
• Is an individual who looks at the immediate choices and direct experiences associated with food and eating: not to the distant health outcome of that choice.
• Is aware of and reflects on the effects caused by unmindful eating.
• Experiences insight about how he/she can act to achieve specific health goals as he/she becomes more attuned to the direct experience of eating and feelings of health.
• Becomes aware of the interconnection of earth, living beings, and cultural practices and the impact of his/ her food choices has on those systems.
• Acknowledges that there is no right or wrong way to eat but varying degrees of awareness surrounding the experience of food.
• Accepts that his/her eating experiences are unique.
• Is an individual who by choice, directs his/her awareness to all aspects of food and eating on a moment-by-moment basis.
• Is an individual who looks at the immediate choices and direct experiences associated with food and eating: not to the distant health outcome of that choice.
• Is aware of and reflects on the effects caused by unmindful eating.
• Experiences insight about how he/she can act to achieve specific health goals as he/she becomes more attuned to the direct experience of eating and feelings of health.
• Becomes aware of the interconnection of earth, living beings, and cultural practices and the impact of his/ her food choices has on those systems.
Week 47
Mantra | Eat Mindfully
Action | Take Longer to Chew Your Food
Week 45 | It is Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness
Short but sweet:
The clocks have fallen back. It's dark early. I've heard a lot of complaining, and have participated in some myself. Then I went to my 12 week OB appointment and my doctor was dressed in a beautiful green shalwar and was celebrating Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," which she described as a celebration of lighting up the dark. This takes me back to the wonderful Chinese proverb I have had under the heading of this blog since Week 1.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
And so it is.
Week 45
Mantra:
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Action:
Light a candle every night this week and write one positive thought.
Week 44 | Dream On | Write Down Your Dreams When You Wake Up
OK. This image is another throw-back to my adolescent decor. I borrowed Shel Silverstein's words from the opening of Where the Sidewalk Ends and hung them on my bedroom door.
I recently participated in a workshop about dreaming and it's got me thinking. As an art therapist, I have studied dream analysis and I use dream work in my sessions with clients. I LOVE and believe in this work! But, I have gone back and forth in my personal life with paying close attention to my own dreams, which I usually remember. The night before the workshop, lying in bed, I wondered if I would have especially vivid dreams, knowing I would be going to the workshop in the morning. Having that conscious thought was all it took, and I woke up having had a very complex and meaningful dream that I, of course, shared with the workshop group, gaining invaluable feedback that I continue to mull over during my quiet moments of self-discovery.
In the days before the sleep deprivation that comes from night nursings, and the groggy start to the day with a screaming toddler as an alarm clock, I actually used to jot my dreams down every morning. If you can, I suggest doing this. I miss the practice, and will attempt to write my dreams down every morning this week before getting Gavin out of bed. (He's been pretty content in the mornings lately to play with his "friends,"the 30 stuffed animals he sleeps with.)
Here's a shortcut to the dream process I learned at the recent workshop. (I'll give due credit, but just can't manage to get up and find the folder at this hour.)
1. Give your dream a title.
2. List the feelings that you had about the dream in your waking mind.
3. List any parts of the dream that mirror reality, or that could really happen.
4. List the questions that you have about the dream.
5. Share your dream with a friend and have them offer questions that they have about the dream.. "If it were my dream..."
6. After pondering the dream a little more, come up with a bumper sticker style message.
I'll try to post about one of my dreams this week so you can see how this works, in case this doesn't make sense.
Week 44
Mantra | Dream On
Action | Write Down Your Dreams When You Wake Up
ps - GO VOTE!!!!
Week 43 | Imagine Yourself Magic | Conjure Up Something You Want to Invite into Your Life
I first discovered this poster during my first visit to a campus bookstore. I was attending a basketball camp at Bradley University in 1990. It's so funny now, but walking into that bookstore was a mind-opening experience. Growing up in Peoria, Illinois, disconnected from the kind of artsy, magical, progressive kinds of things I've always been drawn to, I was psyched to discover that one could find such cool things on a university campus. And we had one of those in our town! Anyway, I hung this very poster with love in every single room I lived in from 8th grade through grad school. Over the years, I also followed the artist/author who made it, SARK, reading many of her books, and then actually got to meet her (with Mere!) in San Francisco 10 years after my discovery of her poster. I have the thing memorized and I find myself over and over thinking of lines from this poster. One that I often find myself mentalizing is "Imagine Yourself Magic."
And then I was jogging at Palmer Square the other day and I literally ran across this written in the golden leaves of this beautiful season:
I love it when things like that happen. I feel as though the universe just opens up and sends me messages straight from the cosmos. "Yes, universe," I say, "I have not been imagining myself magic enough lately. Thank you."
Week 43
Mantra | Imagine Yourself Magic
Mantra | Imagine Yourself Magic
Action | Conjure Up Something You Want to Invite into Your Life
You can call SARK's "inspiration line" to listen to an uplifting message, if you'd like:
415 546 3742
(Don't worry. It's just a regular voice mail.)
Here are some of my favorite bits from her current message:
Little by little, you will turn into stars.
Question to ask yourself: Am I resisting this? Or allowing this?
There are more things to learn about than feeling good. So many good things grow in the dark.
"If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day." -Leonard Cohen
Week 41 | Practice Silence | Make an Effort to Stop Talking and Just Listen
Sorry I missed a week. I've been in a blog rut.
As a therapist, I learned in school about the magic of silence. I can remember how hard it was when I was green to sit and listen and refrain from responding immediately, the way we do in conversation. Over time, I have gotten better and more comfortable with sitting in silence with someone. It is sometimes magical when you are comfortable in your silence, and you can allow someone the space to say what they really need to express. In sessions, I often talk myself through the silence in my mind, saying "wait.. just take a deep breath and wait.." and I've stretched my silent comfort zone a bit farther, only to hear my client start sharing a little more.
I have been sort of practicing more silence in non-therapy conversations lately, but I'd like to be extra mindful of it this week as we head to Arizona for my sister's wedding, which will provide many opportunities for conversation.
Week 41
Mantra: Practice Silence
Action: Make an Effort to Stop Talking and Just Listen
Week 39 | See the Soul | Imagine People as Their Newborn Selves
Okay, okay. So I know I have babies on my mind right now, which is probably why I thought of this week's action. I still struggle with the judgmental part of my shadow that sees the outer shell, or politics, or behaviors of people before seeing their soul, and I don't like that. For me, part of being more mindful is seeing and then connecting with the soul in everyone.
I had to take public trans to work the other day and made this little exercise up while riding on the bus. When I noticed myself making assumptions about a stranger, I forced myself to imagine that person as a newborn. Yes, that also involved some judgment in picturing them, their entry into the world, the reception from their parent(s) as I envisioned it in my imagination. But it was a really effective tool in helping me move away from my judgments. In many cases, it brought tears to my eyes.. the simplicity of the conjured image bringing me directly in touch with these souls on the bus.
I like it. I'm going to try to remember to practice it every day this week.
Week 39
Mantra | See the Soul
Action | Imagine People as Their Newborn Selves
ps - In an effort to keep this blog from becoming "A Pregnancy of Positive Intention" I am writing a totally separate blog for myself... that is public ... in case anyone wants to follow along my pregnancy. It's http://hopefulafterhellp.blogspot.com/
pps - My husband just called me a multi-blogger. Hilarious!
Week 38 | Love Better | Actually ask what you can do to love better
I haven't blogged for the past two weeks. I have gone deep within myself and posting felt too public for what I was experiencing.
Two weeks ago we received ecstatically joyous news, followed quickly by devastating news.
I am pregnant! I am 6 weeks along, due in mid-May, and very excited!
Just as we were settling into our joy and astonishment at having actually conceived the moment we decided to go for it, we got the heart-wrenching news that Brian's best friend in the world has cancer. He is okay. But the news shocked us, and triggered some deep fears.
For the past two weeks I have been acutely aware of the connection between life and death. It was in my last pregnancy, at the end, when I developed HELLP Syndrome, that I was the closest I've ever been to the connection between the two. And now I am there again, in part because of the life growing inside of me, in part because of the death that I averted last time, and in part because of our friend's cancer diagnosis. He's not going to die, already had surgery, and will start chemo and/or radiation very soon. He's going to be fine.
But all of this life and death stuff leads me to think about love, which, to me, is the only thing that really matters. Just as I was thinking about love, how I love, the people I love.. I read an article in Whole Living in which the author asked her family to tell her how she can love them better. I decided to do the same thing to mixed results. First of all, it's kind of an awkward question. And secondly, I'm pretty close with my family and they all sort of responded like I was being ridiculous. In any case, I pledge to do everything from shipping off 4 bottles of lemon ginger echinacea juice to our friends' house in the mountains to "cherishing family harmony," whatever that means. ;)
Week 38
Mantra | Love Better
Action | Actually ask what you can do to love better
A Note about Synchronicity
I was thinking back to the post from week 13 and wanted to tell you a little story about the pink t-shirt that arrived synchronistically in the mail.
It was 6 years ago. I was rounding the corner on a long year out of losing Poppy (my grandpa), moving back to the midwest from San Francisco, ending a difficult relationship, living on my own in Chicago, and working full-time at a really crappy job while working the rest of the time at the art center that my best friend and I had opened. Life felt hard. Really hard. I'd been through some things that strained my ability to feel my usual optimism.
And then I took a trip with one of my best friends to visit another of my best friends in Amsterdam. Something about being with really good friends, riding bikes through those beautiful brick streets, over canals lit by the moon, and amongst lots and lots of other bikes... oh, and there was that exciting Dutch romance.. anyway, the whole experience was an awakening. The kind of awakening that was really a journey back to myself, and my usual state of optimism and synchronistic living.
Within two months of taking that trip, returning to Chicago to find it gray, stale, frigid and unforgiving, I made up my mind that I needed a huge change. I knew something big was around the corner. I just didn't know what it was yet. So I decided to make the change myself, instead of waiting for synchronicity to do its thing. I made plans to move to Amsterdam to live with my best friend, an idea that was born, of course, out of the great awakening that had taken place there.
And wouldn't you know it? As soon as I had made a definitive plan, and emotionally detached from the gloom that I knew in Chicago, I walked into a drumming bar on a Friday night, and straight into the next chapter of my life, the synchronistic moment that was around the corner.
There was Brian. Living in a similar state of gloom, hoping for his own awakening, his own next chapter. We went out exactly 4 nights later and fell in love in a booth at a restaurant. Just like that.
Six weeks later he took me to "the lake" in Wisconsin to enjoy the holiday weekend and to meet his parents and his entire family of choice, people he had grown up with and loved his whole life. Second moms, second dads, best friends in the universe, more brothers and sisters than I could keep track of. What an incredible bunch!
As nervous as I was to meet all these people at once, I felt the love immediately. I will especially never forget standing in a warm cottage kitchen, watching the love of my life hold his best friend's infant son for the first time. This kitchen, in varying states of loving re-construction since I've known it, and where many a meeting of the babies, and many a long talk about life has taken place ever since, and countless times in the years before me, happens to be the kitchen of Brian's second mom, Judy.
Judy just so happens to have welcomed me with loving arms, birthday cakes, book recommendations, borrowed cars in the mountains, and many other things, into their greater family. And Judy just so happens to have anonymously sent me a very cute pink shirt back in February that said "Keep calm and carry on," that just so happened to inspire me to blog about synchronicity...
So THAT, my friends, is synchronicity. And it's synchronicity at its best.
Happy Birthday, Judy!!!!!! Much love!
It was 6 years ago. I was rounding the corner on a long year out of losing Poppy (my grandpa), moving back to the midwest from San Francisco, ending a difficult relationship, living on my own in Chicago, and working full-time at a really crappy job while working the rest of the time at the art center that my best friend and I had opened. Life felt hard. Really hard. I'd been through some things that strained my ability to feel my usual optimism.
And then I took a trip with one of my best friends to visit another of my best friends in Amsterdam. Something about being with really good friends, riding bikes through those beautiful brick streets, over canals lit by the moon, and amongst lots and lots of other bikes... oh, and there was that exciting Dutch romance.. anyway, the whole experience was an awakening. The kind of awakening that was really a journey back to myself, and my usual state of optimism and synchronistic living.
Within two months of taking that trip, returning to Chicago to find it gray, stale, frigid and unforgiving, I made up my mind that I needed a huge change. I knew something big was around the corner. I just didn't know what it was yet. So I decided to make the change myself, instead of waiting for synchronicity to do its thing. I made plans to move to Amsterdam to live with my best friend, an idea that was born, of course, out of the great awakening that had taken place there.
And wouldn't you know it? As soon as I had made a definitive plan, and emotionally detached from the gloom that I knew in Chicago, I walked into a drumming bar on a Friday night, and straight into the next chapter of my life, the synchronistic moment that was around the corner.
There was Brian. Living in a similar state of gloom, hoping for his own awakening, his own next chapter. We went out exactly 4 nights later and fell in love in a booth at a restaurant. Just like that.
Six weeks later he took me to "the lake" in Wisconsin to enjoy the holiday weekend and to meet his parents and his entire family of choice, people he had grown up with and loved his whole life. Second moms, second dads, best friends in the universe, more brothers and sisters than I could keep track of. What an incredible bunch!
As nervous as I was to meet all these people at once, I felt the love immediately. I will especially never forget standing in a warm cottage kitchen, watching the love of my life hold his best friend's infant son for the first time. This kitchen, in varying states of loving re-construction since I've known it, and where many a meeting of the babies, and many a long talk about life has taken place ever since, and countless times in the years before me, happens to be the kitchen of Brian's second mom, Judy.
Judy just so happens to have welcomed me with loving arms, birthday cakes, book recommendations, borrowed cars in the mountains, and many other things, into their greater family. And Judy just so happens to have anonymously sent me a very cute pink shirt back in February that said "Keep calm and carry on," that just so happened to inspire me to blog about synchronicity...
So THAT, my friends, is synchronicity. And it's synchronicity at its best.
Happy Birthday, Judy!!!!!! Much love!
Week 34 | Tap Into Your Right Brain | Draw with Your Left Hand
Getting harder and harder to keep up with weekly posts.
My right brained-ness is screaming for attention lately. Spending way too much time in a left-brained state of mind.
So..
Week 34
Mantra: Tap Into Your Right Brain
Action: Draw with Your Left Hand
ps - Send me your drawings and I'll post them! (Anonymously if you insist...)
pps - This is loosely related to this week's post, but I LOVE art journaling, and I have been enjoying a blog about the "Ten Coolest Art Therapy Interventions" and really especially liked this post - which got me thinking about the left-handed drawing idea
ppps - If you are left handed, I <3 you, and you should keep drawing with your left hand.
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