“Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?” ― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs
“Pray thee, spare, thyself at times: for it becomes a wise man sometimes to relax the high pressure of his attention to work.” – Thomas Aquinas
When we settle in and settle down, allowing relaxation to restore and rejuvenate, we gain new perspective. A shift, a turn of the head and the world becomes new from the inside out. Don’t waste days wallowing, wading and willowing. Rest up, look up and relax. It’s all good and going to be good with the fullness of time. In the meantime, let go and relax.
This public service announcement is brought to you by my life coaches Abby and Sasha – the model fun makers and relaxation queens. Lighten up, it makes the journey so much sweeter.
“We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts
“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss
Stay at home orders, 24/7 news, a lot of time with those in our household, keeping energetic kids busy inside as well as becoming their school teacher, working remote, uncertainty of what will happen with COVID-19 and a new vocabulary of what’s essential and nonessential have shifted our daily reality. As we adjust to our “new normal,” we have an invitation to create something of this open space and time.
While we may feel stuck, the sands of time continue to flow through the hourglass. We all have the same 24 hours in a day and 7 days in the week. Just a few weeks ago, we lamented our busy schedules and now we lament too much time on our hands. Time remains the same so what needs to change is our perception of time and what we will each decide to do with it.
When caught in the heaviness of moments through the day, imagine four weeks from today. What will you be able to say that you created with this time? How will you be different? Did you learn anything new? Did you foster gratitude? Did you build deeper and stronger relationships? Did you finally listen to that still small voice inside calling you back to yourself?
Here are some encouraging quotes on time that may help you think differently about the potential of this very unusual time.
“Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.” – Khalil Gibran
“We must use time creatively.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“So during those first moments of the day, which are yours and yours alone, you can circumvent these boundaries and concentrate fully on spiritual matters. And this gives you the opportunity to plan the time management of the entire day.” – Menachem Mendel Schneerson
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” – Albert Einstein
“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” – C. S. Lewis
“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Time will pass and seasons will come and go.” – Roy Bean
“Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.” – Alan Lakein
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
“Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“There are two kinds of worries – those you can do something about and those you can’t. Don’t spend any time on the latter.” – Duke Ellington
“Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.” – Max Frisch
“At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent.” – Barbara Bush
“Day, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.” – Ambrose Bierce
“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.” – Earl Nightingale
“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.” – Adam Hochschild
“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.” – Eckhart Tolle
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie
“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” – Steve Jobs
“Each moment is perfect and heaven-sent, in that each moment holds the seeds for growth.” – Suzan-Lori Parks
“Effort at its most fundamental level is just that commitment to try, to work hard, to give our all, not knowing where that will lead is also a working definition of faith. Life has taught me that, regardless of what we face, effort and faith will lead us into the larger stream of life that holds us. And being held by the larger stream of life is another way to describe grace.” – Mark Nepo, The One Life We’re Given
“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.” – Bradley Whitford
No matter how many times you throw the stick, Grace (my poochie niece) always runs off the dock full throttle with the same level of effort and enthusiasm at the beginning and at the end.
The stick is out of reach but only if you don’t pursue it with all of your heart, soul and being. Yet again, our four-legged friends teach us two-legged over-complicating wanderers how to live well and completely by pursuing the stick and never, ever giving up.
“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” – Blaise Pascal
“God wants us to know that life is a series of beginnings, not endings. Just as graduations are not terminations, but commencements. Creation is an ongoing process, and when we create a perfect world where love and compassion are shared by all, suffering will cease.” – Bernie Siegel
What will you create today?
Laughter, light, meaning, value, joy, depth? Will your drop in the ocean sink to the bottom or ripple outward in all directions to move another, to inspire. One small deed. A smile. Undivided attention. A word of encouragement.
We create our own world and cast light or shadow outward. A symphony or a clanging drum. A sigh of relief or signal of distress. If we choose worry, it takes front and center stage. If we choose to murmur, it keeps coming out and expands to fill the room with noise, creating pockets of void.
Kindness, gratitude, compassion and love move mountains, create a new landscape, raise us up. Release the best in you and create a new world right where you stand. One small beautiful act at a time. New beginnings, not endings. Create.
“For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.” – Countee Cullen
While it may seem counter intuitive, that which we let go, releases us to soar higher than we could ever imagine. Yet we cling to inequities, as if holding tighter and owning them fiercely, we justify our position.
Often that which we despise, we become when we act and react in kind to what has been done to us or our perception of what has been done. You name it – it happens every day in dozens of ways. The guy at work who takes credit for your ideas. The car that cuts you off in traffic. Those people who continue to get ahead who haven’t paid their “dues.” The customer who relentlessly complains to get her way. And the list goes on. But we need not go on with it.
“Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, ‘Just watch!’” – Bill Bradley
The tighter we cling, the less we have – a hollow “prize” that steals our energy, creativity and zest. Instead of moving ahead into the life we are built for, we dig a deeper hole in the same spot, content with being right, but stuck in a hole nevertheless.
We hold our fingers crossed behind our back when we tell ourselves to let go, so we can hang on to a small piece as to not completely give it up. However, we must completely let go to be completely released, to rise above and move forward. It is impossible to partially let go and still take flight, to soar.
“Almost every hour of every day, we’ll find ourselves in a situation where we can be now who we weren’t before, because we know now what we didn’t know before. And from this newness in our being springs fresh opportunities we could never have imagined. God specializes in new beginnings.” – Marianne Williamson
“Love makes the world less worldly, less dense, more transparent to the divine dimension, the light of consciousness itself.” – Eckhart Tolle
Easter shouts for joy and proclaims the promise of new beginnings and everlasting life. As the sun burns off the fog, there’s a new clarity and vision. We do not walk alone and road ahead need not be defined by miles gone by. Forge ahead confident, open to receiving the gift of awesome possibilities beyond your imagination.
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.” – Mary Oliver
As I waited for my oil to be changed and tires to be rotated, a gentleman sat down next to me on the bench. My head was down looking at my phone. He started a conversation about his son and football. I had the sense to put my phone aside and engage in the conversation for 10 minutes, even though he was a Packer fan (Viking jealousy). Small talk really, but he kept the conversation going, so I did as well.
A simple human exchange that makes you feel human again. What we pay attention to becomes our life, creating depth or mere speed, sometimes a mix of both. If we bring our head up long enough to pay attention, we find a world overflowing with vibrant color and filled with simple conversations that mean more than we know. Be amazed and embrace your life today, for that is all we are promised.
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” – Mary Oliver
“Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature.” – Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Amen of nature is always a flower.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Let each day unfold without pretense or prediction of what will or should be. Look for the good in others and yourself and let the rest go. Stop trying to fix others and control the uncontrollable. Glimpses of light and clarity are woven through each day to awaken us to life, to ourselves.
“The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.” – Bernard Williams
Beneath the weight of the snow lies green grass ready to awaken, flowers ready to burst from the earth. The warmth of the sun brings a slow, steady melt. Renewed and refreshed from the dormancy of Winter, Spring patiently waits to unfold in its time.
Through the seasons of our life, we cycle from hibernation to fruition, never the same, growing and unfolding into ourselves. We can remain buried beneath the layers and weight or we can let the heaviness melt away, letting go, forgetting, forgiving, moving on.
Spring releases Winter. We need not carry it any further. It has served its purpose. Melt, soften, become more gentle. Breakthrough the layers, burst, bud, bloom. Be bright, bold and beautiful. Beneath, beneath, Spring has come.
“The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory.” – Gary Zukav
“What goes on externally is only the tip of the iceberg in any situation. The lessons, the real changes, the opportunities to grow—these are things the body’s eyes can’t see. They remain beneath the spiritual water line, but they are there. And they represent a much more vast picture of the soul’s journey than what we can see from the perspective of our physical senses. Growth is not always about getting what we think we want. Always, it’s about becoming the men and women we have the potential to be. Loving, pure, honest, clear.” – Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love
“From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.” – Jacques Yves Cousteau
Cast your net more deep than wide. Beneath the surface of assumptions and judgment lies compassion and kindness. The truth is below the waterline, waiting to free us to love deeper, stay longer and become who we are meant to be. Just beneath the waterline.
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
“Cast Light” is an invitation to release your inner light, your authentic self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”― Mary Oliver
“I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” — Anne Lamott
