Vulnerability
"You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding."
- Cheryl Strayed
“What makes you wise in life is not the successes.
It's when you go down + come back.” - Cesar Milan
"We often do not have as much 'work' to do as we think. But we are so caught in the dynamics of inadequacy, searching, revenge and self-destruction that it is actually more difficult or challenging to simply acknowledge what is already available to us." - Hilary Hart
"We grow from finding gratitude." - Sheryl Sandburg
"You don't have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you're holding."
- Cheryl Strayed
“What makes you wise in life is not the successes.
It's when you go down + come back.” - Cesar Milan
"We often do not have as much 'work' to do as we think. But we are so caught in the dynamics of inadequacy, searching, revenge and self-destruction that it is actually more difficult or challenging to simply acknowledge what is already available to us." - Hilary Hart
"We grow from finding gratitude." - Sheryl Sandburg
Vulnerability: an action, a step of courage, a necessary component to change any story and for this reason it can be terrifying and therefore often avoided. We are precious. We have been hurt and we aren't likely to want to be hurt again, yet true vulnerability is a tremendously powerful force in our lives, with the possibility to transmute the moment we are standing in.
If we are sitting in a place of discomfort, one of the easiest and fastest ways to find solace is to offer kindness to another, which is exactly what we are doing with this week's art. "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there is just too little of." That includes you. So as you give, receive. It is available to you. Even when it looks like there is nothing there. This week I invite you to look a little into the shadows of what is waiting to die away. Look to and caretake your tender corners and curves, of your body, your mind and welcome in the presence of your Spirit. Be with what is - give it voice (see complain it and our additional writing prompts) and let it go; let it give way to a new day. For that is what each day is - a new moment - let us treat it as such.
As Cheryl Strayed said: "You don't have the right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you are holding." So play - create - allow stillness + allow the Muse to come and whisper in your ear the language of your heart.
If we are sitting in a place of discomfort, one of the easiest and fastest ways to find solace is to offer kindness to another, which is exactly what we are doing with this week's art. "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there is just too little of." That includes you. So as you give, receive. It is available to you. Even when it looks like there is nothing there. This week I invite you to look a little into the shadows of what is waiting to die away. Look to and caretake your tender corners and curves, of your body, your mind and welcome in the presence of your Spirit. Be with what is - give it voice (see complain it and our additional writing prompts) and let it go; let it give way to a new day. For that is what each day is - a new moment - let us treat it as such.
As Cheryl Strayed said: "You don't have the right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you are holding." So play - create - allow stillness + allow the Muse to come and whisper in your ear the language of your heart.
Write It: Click here for Week Three's Writing Prompts.
Dance It: This song.
Listen to It: This week I am sharing a podcast that I found riveting to consider from On Being with Sheryl Sandburg + Adam Grant - on resilience and loss. If you are not already a podcast listener and want to listen on your phone you can search for this epsiode in Itunes, and Android users can search through Stitcher.
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Meet a Friend: Jana Stone and I met on a little deck in Waimanalo. We share the same Kumu (teacher) for lomilomi. To meet Jana is to be in the presence of a cultivated innocence of an open and willing heart. She views the world through creativity and a strong belief in the beauty of the person standing before her. When she is not sharing table work she is making jewelry. When I asked Jana to contribute, I knew she would bring a rawness - and she did -- child warning, both videos contain adult language - -but that is not the rawness I am speaking of; I am speaking of her vulnerability.
Initially, I asked her to make a shorter follow up video. I reconsidered and am now sharing both with you - uncut - because of her vulnerability, truth and honesty. Rawness is courageous and her willingness to share her story in the world - how it was and how she is rewriting it - is an invitation for us all to write a little more deeply into the life we are called to live. Enjoy Meeting Jana. Click here for the Jana's shorter video on Creativity. Click here for the longer video (shot first) where Jana walks us through the story of her life, her courage and her choices. Follow Jana + her creations here. |
Create It: This week's art: write 4 handwritten thank you cards, letting beloveds know how + why you appreciate, cherish or are inspired by them. Be detailed. Is it their blueberry muffins? Their way of always knowing when to call? Or maybe a memory that you hold close of them. Write it out. Draw a little something on the envelope -- send your love through the mail and change someone's day. Need some help, click here
Complain It: What? No I am serious and so is Karla McLaren. Mc Laren shares from Language of Emotions: "The real problem arises when we can't reassociate or regain equilibrium after a shocking or agitating incident occurs. Strangely, I discovered that trauma is not the real problem either, because trauma is a fact of life. Trees fall, dentistry happens, cars veer, people yell and hit...danger is everywhere. The issue is neither in the danger not in the dissociation, but in the fact that we don't have the resilience to bring ourselves back to center once the danger has passed. That resilience springs naturally from a fully resourced psyche, but without that stable and agile foundation, resilience is unlikely. When we don't have access to our whole selves, we can't tolerate flow, which means we cannot channel our thoughts, emotions, sensations, visions, or traumatic memories."
I am not a professional psychologist or mental health practitioner - so I would not be so bold to lay claim on walking any of us out of or into these landscapes, yet I thought McLaren's invitation a profound one (the book is fantastic). I would like to share with you her exercise on Conscious Complaining and encourage you do this at least once this week and see how it feels. Just as we sweep our front steps and dust our living rooms, so too must we shake off the emotions of our daily lives, opening back up to the flow. Click here.
Find It: Go Outside. Where is your Here of the Natural world? Your deck, beach, tree, plant or stream? When you need to go "there" where is that? And if you don't have a Here -- let's find one this week, and maybe it might be the week after but beginning looking now.
Set an intention to be outside with no agenda, listen, observe, journal, meditate, take off your shoes and feel the Earth under your feet and breathe for a few minutes. Connect with the life giving you life - under your feet. Then, give gratitude, a song, a "thank you," a "compliment -- have you ever complimented a tree or a flower? Try it.
You can post a photo on FB or carry the moment in your heart.
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
-- David Wagoner
"As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace." --Denise Levertov
Check in: Look back at your intention and list in your journal 3 ways you are accomplishing your goal, think wide + tiny. Celebrate yourself. We are half way through and you are doing marvelously.
Check in: Look back at your intention and list in your journal 3 ways you are accomplishing your goal, think wide + tiny. Celebrate yourself. We are half way through and you are doing marvelously.
