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Posts from the ‘Encouragement’ Category

Aug 28

Garden Tending

“Your minds may now be likened to a garden, which will, if neglected, yield only weeds and thistles; but, if cultivated, will produce the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits.” – Dorothea Dix

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan

What to weed out, what to water
Choose your tending well
Be aware of what you behold
Time provides the necessary distance needed to gain perspective
Struggle gives way to calm
Ease and acceptance
Healing and restoration
Lay down the nonessential
Shape and be shaped
Malleable and permeable
Tend your garden

“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.” – Liberty Hyde Bailey

Aug 20

Soul Music

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”- John Muir

“When we try to protect ourselves from the inevitability of change, we are not listening to the soul. We are listening to our fear of life and death, our lack of faith, our smaller ego’s will to prevail. To listen to your soul is to stop fighting with life–to stop fighting when things fall apart; when they don’t go our away, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty and to wait.”― Elizabeth Lesser

May you find:
Joy in waiting
Peace in struggles
Faith in the desert
Hope when weary
Strength to keep going
Kindness for self and others

Let go of control
Allow your soul to drive
Your spirit to sore
Your heart to embrace
Soul music – listen

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” – Edmund Hillary

Jul 30

1 Comment

Namaste

“It is the hopeful, buoyant, cheerful attitude of mind that wins. Optimism is a success builder; pessimism an achievement killer.” – Orison Swett Marden

“Namaste means that my soul acknowledges yours –
not just your light, your wisdom, your goodness,
but also your darkness, your suffering, your imperfections.
It is a recognition and acceptance of the inexplicable
divine absurdity, the miraculous woven into the ordinary,
light and darkness intimately entwined in magical, messy humanity.
It means that I honor all that you are with all that I am.
So, namaste, my fellow travelers.
I’m so glad we’re on this trek through the universe together.” ― L.R. Knost

May you harness your thoughts to find the magic in simple moments
The depth of your soul
The expanse of your heart
The power of your intentions and attention
The energy of gratitude.

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.” – Marcus Aurelius

Jul 26

In the Flow

“Faith does not need to push the river because faith is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing. We are in it.”― Richard Rohr

Seasons
Cycles
Sunrise and sunset
Ebb and flow
A new day, a fresh week
Enter the flow and ease
From motion to stillness
A waterfall of grace and gratitude
Do the heartwork, the soul tending.

HEARTWORK by Suzy Kassem

“Each day is born with a sunrise
and ends in a sunset, the same way we
open our eyes to see the light,
and close them to hear the dark.
You have no control over
how your story begins or ends.
But by now, you should know that
all things have an ending.
Every spark returns to darkness.
Every sound returns to silence.
And every flower returns to sleep
with the earth.
The journey of the sun
and moon is predictable.
But yours,
is your ultimate
ART.”

Jul 17

Dare to Claim the Sky

“That is what happens when you put your soul in charge of your life. You dare to claim the sky. That sky is different for everyone. For one person, maybe the sky is having a baby, being a parent, growing a family. But for another it’s never having kids; it’s traveling the globe; it’s saving the world… You know your sky. And if you don’t, it’s because you haven’t listened closely enough.”
― Elizabeth Lesser, Marrow: A Love Story

“Whatever is happening, whatever is changing, whatever is going or not going according to my plans—I release my hold on all of it. I leave behind who I think I am, who I want to be, what I want the world to be. I come home to the great peace of the present moment.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Put light hunting and joy fishing on your “to do” list every single day;
Play, wander, listen, move from doing to being;
Go deeper, stay longer, linger;
Find cracks and crevices to let light in to break of the density of your thinking, your opinions, your resistance;
Move from mind to heart and back again to build a bridge, a connection, a thruway;
Write new endings and beginnings to your story a paragraph at a time with your daily thoughts, intentions, words and actions;
Yield to light and joy;
Dare to claim your sky.

“May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided—by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way—the hero’s journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here.”― Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Jul 1

Daily Work

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” – J. B. Priestley

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

The first day of a new month, a new week, the daily sunrise invite us into the gift and magic of new beginnings, of clean slates. Each day, we are offered a fresh start to lay our thoughts and opinions down to allow light and color in.

In our control, it’s a decision, our daily work, not to be taken lightly. We hold the key to the locked door of old thoughts of the past and future. Use your imagination, unlock the door and cross the threshold into the present moment.

When our circumstances don’t change, it’s an invitation, prompt and calling for us to change our perspective, our rules, our ways. When we untether our happiness and contentment from circumstances and other people, we move through storms and dry seasons, finding a calm, a peace that passes understanding. Change your thoughts, change your day, change your life.

The Greater Good Science Center offers a monthly happiness calendar with daily prompts to create a habit of starting each day new again. Letting go, open heart and hands to receive the gift of now is a daily discipline and rigor. Choose what you will do with this day.

“To live in the light of a new day and an unimaginable and unpredictable future, you must become fully present to a deeper truth – not a truth from your head, but a truth from your heart; not a truth from your ego, but a truth from the highest source.” – Debbie Ford

Jun 29

Inside Larger than Outside

“…I heard an architect say that a contemplative building is not one built for meditating, though meditation may take place there, but more a building where the inside is larger than the outside. It made me realize that anything that does this, that makes the inside larger than the outside, leads us to our core. And breathing there gives us peace.” – Mark Nepo, Finding Inner Courage

May you love yourself enough to travel within to make your inside larger than the outside.
May you love others enough to invite them to the same journey.
May you find peace, joy and light in this very day.

Accept the invitation. Take the trip daily.

“It is a constant challenge to find our center, our core, and to stay there long enough to uncover our capacities. Both require a steady movement inward.” – Mark Nepo, Finding Inner Courage

 

Jun 24

Belonging

“The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect. – Brené Brown

Like the rings of a tree, begin with the core but don’t stop there. Move out ring by ring into the world, anchored in self-acceptance and authenticity. Take your unique imperfect self and dive into experiences wrought with uncertainty, hone your talents and give away all of the gifts you’ve been given.

You belong. You are worthy. The world needs you. Dream and then put legs under it by doing the work. Show up for your life each day. Time’s not waiting, nor should you.

Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability Ted Talk

“I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.” – Brené Brown

Apr 21

Keep Going

Be present today. Get off the sidelines, move from spectator to participant. Stay in the arena of life. Strive. Try again and again. Err. Miss. Victory. Enthusiasm. Devotion. Dare greatly. Keep going.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

Jan 26

Walls, Windows and Doors

“Depth must be hidden. Where? On the surface.” – Hugo von Hofmannsthal

“The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.” – Julien Green

Teaching is the activity, learning the outcome, growth the reward. You cannot teach people who don’t want to learn, starting with, including and ending with you. Our futile efforts to change others, circumstances beyond our reach drains energy, shadows light and surrenders the joy of the journey.

If but only for a few minutes a day, lay down your expectations, assumptions and opinion long enough to examine them with sincerity. Determine what’s on you, on others and on no one. What’s fact or fiction? Internal or external? Road marker or roadblock? There are signs and wonders abound when we pause long enough to see what is already in front, within and surrounding us.

When observation and reflection do their job without assistance, create two piles. Rocks and flowers. Leave the rocks behind and pick up the flowers to move forward with ease. This is the lifelong process of becoming and unbecoming, planting and harvesting, learning and growth, caterpillar to butterfly ,a thousand deaths and two thousand rebirths.

Search for information, you get knowledge. Keep going, insight. Keep going, changed behavior. Keep going, invisible walls appear, crumble and transform to windows and doors. Go beyond information to knowledge to insight to action to transformation. It is on you and in you, hiding in plain sight the entire time.

It’s impossible to have four walls with no windows and doors and expect to thrive. To journey beyond survival, we need windows for light and fresh air and doors to cross thresholds to our ever becoming.

God’s not waiting on others to change or your circumstances to change. He’s waiting patiently and lovingly for you to change, unmoved by others or circumstances, from a place of abundance, not scarcity.

A hammer swing at a time, start breaking holes in the walls to create windows and doors. Let light and fresh air in to heal and restore. Enter wide open spaces, breath deeply, absorb and cast light.

“Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.” – Robert Green Ingersoll

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