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Posts tagged ‘Encouragement’

Nov 5

Roadblocks or Openings

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”― William James

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”― Steve Jobs

What not to do
Making space
For clarity, discernment, meaning
What to carry
What to put down
What not to pick up
Open to being changed
Rather than waiting for circumstances or others to change
Holding things lightly
Grace and gratitude
Ease, joy, delight
Choose your perspective, choose your state of being
Daily work.

“People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.”― Peter Senge

Oct 20

Smile Power

“Peace begins with a smile.” – Mother Teresa

“We often wait for kindness…but being kind to yourself can start now.”― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the

Kindness…
A smile
Laughter
Asking
Listening
Encouragement
Flowers on the table, no occasion required
Gratitude
Praise
Enthusiasm
Fun
Warm embrace
Simple acts
Daily practice
Small investments
Big returns
Compound interest
Cast light with an extra helping of kindness today
Start with a smile, repeat.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Kind,” said the boy.”― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Oct 12

Rhythm, Light, Grace

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. ”― Mary Oliver

“If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm.
If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings.
Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us.
We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.”
– John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

May you hear your own voice
Allow others too
Conversation, exchange, dance
Inquiry, quieting, listening
Allowing, inviting, welcoming
To not know everything
Creating space for unlearning, relearning, growth
Standing on this ground, blessed and blessing
Grace, light, homecoming.

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Oct 11

Keep Looking

“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”― Mary Oliver

“Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of a single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life- just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
Still another…

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

Steadfast and curious
Sun and blade of grass
Telescope and microscope
Look again and again
To see the same differently
When too close pull back
When too far move in
The dance of presence, attention, grace.

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”― Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

Sep 28

The Sky or Just the Weather?

“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”― Pema Chödrön

“Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.”
– John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

Be claimed by calmness
Gentle spirit
Generous heart
Open hands
Rooted in the sky rather than the chaos of the weather
Color, beauty, light, peace to you this day
And may it flood the world

“Peace is not the absence of chaos — it’s learning what deserves your reaction.”― Runarok Hrafn

Sep 25

Dancing Light

“When the heart is open, good humor flows and the ego’s rigidity melts like snow in the sun.”― Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

“May my words be truthful, encouraging and humble. May my words be kind and filled with care.”― Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles

Observer, glance to gaze
Third person to self, others too
Not to judge
Rather to offer kindness, a warm embrace
Assume there’s more to the story, beneath the surface
Choose goodness and light
Delight, encouragement, joy
Open heart and a lot more dancing.

“A person who is not afraid of looking like a fool gets to do a lot more dancing.”― Margaret Renkl

Sep 19

1 Comment

No Scarcity of Delight

“Delight is all around us you know, from the food we eat, to the night sky, to the dreams we have. It surrounds us with every moment, you just have to stop and take it in whenever you can.”― Jonathan Maas, Horsemen

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

“It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?”

In abundance.
Simple things.
Ordinary days.
New eyes required, attention too..
On the ground of now.
Windows open wide.
Fresh air of joy.
No scarcity of delight.

“So today I’m recalling the utility, the need, of my own essayettes to emerge from such dailiness, and in that way to be a practice of witnessing one’s delight, of being in and with one’s delight, daily, which actually requires vigilance. It also requires faith that delight will be with you daily, that you needn’t hoard it. No scarcity of delight.”― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

Sep 13

Guardians of Light

“Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.”― David Foster Wallace, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

“Let us be grateful
for the bees and fireflies—
small wonders
that keep the world
blooming and glowing,
our tiny guardians
of life and light.”
― Bhuwan Thapaliya

To put the world down
If but for a moment
To enter wonder and beauty
Revery and reverence
Let us be torches of kindness, of home
Lighthouses and warm embraces
To pick the world back up with love.

“To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee,
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Sep 3

Class in Session

“I’M TALKING TO THAT PART OF YOU Today, I’m talking to that part of you who yearns for more. The part of you who knows exactly what you want beyond all else. To that part of you who effortlessly believes that anything is possible, and that it’s possible in an instant. I’m talking to that part of you who longs to break right on through that self-imposed ceiling your mind has created out of fear, lack, should, and could. To smash and shatter it into a billion little pieces. I’m talking to that part of you who longs, who dreams, who dances, who wishes. To the part of you that cheers, that laughs, that leaps, that bounds. To that part of you who truly wants the best for others because it deeply knows that there is more than enough to go round. I’m talking to that part of you who knows what you want and the exact next step to take to get it. To that part of you who knows you’re not broken and isn’t the slightest bit interested in perpetuating the story that says it’s so. To that part of you who knows the way and longs to guide the rest of you back home. Today, that’s the part of you I’m talking to. And I’m asking it to step forward and lead the way.”― Rebecca Campbell, Light is the New Black

Back to school.
Not just for kids.
Keep learning, growing, expanding.
Unlearning and exploring.
Be curious.
Inquiry and enthusiasm.
Reflection and wisdom.
Class is in session.
Course of a lifetime.

“Start before you feel ready. You don’t need to know where it’s all going. You’ll work it out along the way.”― Rebecca Campbell, Light is the New Black

Aug 27

Surprised by Joy, Rooted In Gratitude

“Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

“Gratitude goes beyond the ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”― Henri J.M. Nouwen

How we think about things either adds weight or lightens the load
Gardener of grace
Discipline of gratitude
Surprised by joy
Bloom of generosity
Fresh water washing over ordinary, beautiful days
Awaken to delight woven in this day
Plant seeds, tend the field, harvest the bounty.

“Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.”― Henri Nouwen

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