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Posts from the ‘Encouragement’ Category

May 2

Kindness

“People are not problems to be solved. They are mysteries to be explored.” – Eugene H. Peterson

Go into the world (the next room, the coffee shop, traffic, work) and be kind first.
No preconceptions, no judgments, no assumptions.
Give criticism a time out.
Fresh eyes, rapt attention, a listening heart.
Beyond self into communion, connection, love.
Consider alternatives, opposites, upside downs.
Twists, turns, mystery, unknowing.
Unfolding, flowing, darkness, greys, brilliant colors, light.
Choose learning and expanding over certainty and being “right.”
Scatter joy and hope, leave peace to take root and bloom.
Be kind. Repeat.

“Remember, there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” — Scott Adams

Mar 12

Diversify

“Variety is the soul of pleasure.” – Aphra Behn

“The future is always coming up with surprises for us, and the best way to insulate yourself from these surprises is to diversify.” – Robert J. Shiller

Financial advisors tell us to diversify our portfolio.
To not invest our money in only one thing.
Where we invest our time and attention is even more important than where we invest our money.
Our identity gets bound up in what we do, in approval, in permission, in should and musts.
We become our work, our relationships, our family, our past, others expectations.
Doing rather than being.
Production and transaction.
Unfold, create, explore and expand.
Play, rest, inquire, allow, invite, imagine, enjoy, relax, delight.
Allow mystery and incompleteness.
Try new things.
Diversify activities, interests, thinking.
Be yourself, your true self.
Dream, imagine, act.
No permission slip required.
Cast your light!

“We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to “explain,” which usually implies that the explanation be “understood,” i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation.”― Erich Fromm, The Art of Being

Mar 5

Yellow Door

“Nobody needs a smile so much as the one who has none to give. So get used to smiling heart-warming smiles, and you will spread sunshine in a sometimes dreary world.” – Lawrence G. Lovasik

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia

Be the yellow in grey.
Smile.
Extend a greeting first.
Ask how another is doing.
Engage.
Simple acts given freely, without reserve.
An invitation.
A door.
A threshold.
A homecoming.
Laughter, levity, light.
Sunshine to make flowers bloom.
Be the yellow in grey.

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.” – Joseph Addison

Jan 19

Eyes on the Road

“Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

“Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Glance only but for a moment in the rearview mirror;
Keep your eyes on the road ahead;
Holding the wheel;
Taking in the scenery;
Open to possibility, the promise of things that have never been.
New trails, some detours, some culdesacs.
Mountains, valleys, curves and flat.
Make your way out, around, through.
Eyes on the road.
Keep going, present in the journey, in this day.

“Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Jan 14

Persist

"Nature always wears the colors of the spirit." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” – Ben Okri

Create
Overcome
Endure
Transform
Color
Air
Light
Current
Capacity
Agency
Depth
Resilience
Joy
Laughter
Hope
Grace
Gratitude
Light
You are greater than circumstances and struggles.
Persist.

“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Dec 15

Assurance

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
—T.S. Eliot

“Not in his goals but in his transitions man is great.”  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

In our own struggles, we not only gain insight with time and distance, empathy can be fruit we bear as well. When we allow vulnerability and share struggles together, we create connectedness and “us”ness rather than aloneness.

In conversations recently, I’ve referenced a few anchor points that have held me in and through difficulty. In Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ seminal book On Grief and Grieving, she frames the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She never presented the stages as linear but more circular, completed in due time with acceptance. These stages are not only relevant in final death but the many deaths and transitions we experience in life. Two years of a pandemic have presented a lot of deaths to the collective whole of humanity. In 2020, co-author of On Grief and Grieving David Kessler wrote a new book adding the sixth stage of grief – meaning. When we know meaning is the destination, we can tolerate and keep moving through the rough parts of the journey.

The next reference that has fostered a deeper understanding and foundation of assurance is Bridges Transition Model identifying the three stages of transition – ending what currently is, the neutral zone and the new beginning.

“The essence of life takes place in the neutral zone phase of transition. It is in that interim spaciousness that all possibilities, creativity and innovative ideas can come to life and flourish.” – Susan Bridges

The winters of life serve their purpose which we rarely see or understand in real time. Be assured – spring never skips its turn. Sharing that assurance with others. Cast light, hope and connection.

Nov 2

The Whole Damn Sky

“Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” – Jimi Hendrix

When you it all feels small, look up at the sky.
When it all feels too big, look at the petals of a flower.
Big and small, surface and deep, and mostly everything in between.
Be a part, immersed, buoyed, detached, attached and aware of it all.
No need to label or change each moment, move through it and simple be present.
The whole damn sky.

Permission to feel it all by Kate Bowler

“I feel things big. And for the longest time, I felt so much shame because of it. I need reminders that my emotions are not bad or good. They’re just information.

You feel angry because this is unjust. You feel sad because this is awful. You feel tired because this is exhausting.

Your emotions are not wrong or bad or lying to you or the full truth. They’re giving you a bit of data that you shouldn’t ignore. We love and lose and fall and get back up and fail and try again.

This is what it means to be human, to feel the pain, the grief, the stress, the risk, the fear, the heartbreak. So you, beautiful creature, you here is your permission slip to feel it all, to feel the joy and delight and excitement and the sorrow and fear and despair.

All the yellows and pinks and violets and grays, because you are the whole damn sky.”

Sep 27

The In Between

“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” – Epictetus

Allow time to do its work.
Slowly but surely and then suddenly.
Patience, ease and acceptance.
Struggle, release, take hold.
A process, a cycle, a completion.
In the waiting, rest in gratitude, do good, keep going.
Enjoy the in between, the space between seed and fruit.
Blossom to fruition.
Full circle.

Sep 24

Walls to Windows

“You are on a soulful path that asks you to step into the greatest version of yourself. It is a sacred gift to shine your brightest light, not just in your moments of glory, but each day.” – Debbie Ford

“There is a vastness that quiets the soul. But sometimes we are so squarely in the midst of life’s forces that we can’t see what we’re a part of.” – Mark Nepo

May your walls become windows.
Inviting the light in, exposing your soul, broadening your view.
See the expanse of the universe and your place in the vastness woven in this very day.
Beyond circumstances, distractions and swirling thoughts into the rich soil of life.
Let the light in, open the windows, plant seeds, harvest joy.
Someday is today.
Fully participate in it.
Walls to windows.

Aug 29

Handiwork

“Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.” – Victor Hugo

“This is how Heaven works. They’re practical. We are always looking for rays of light. For lightning bolts or burning bushes. But God is a worker, like us. He made the world — He didn’t hire poor Indios to build it for him! God has worker’s hands. Just remember — angels carry no harps. Angels carry hammers.”― Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter

Discover your wings
Allow the path to unfold, walk softly into the unknown
Witness God’s handiwork in your life, in this day, all around and within
A slight shift, a different angle, new eyes
Gratitude, grace and generosity
Enjoy the journey, carry a hammer, take flight.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

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