Beautiful Things
beautiful
What’s in your complaint box?
What’s in your complaint box? Any chance of turning those complaints around and thinking of them as blessings?
I’ve been doing an experiment. Every day I write down as many things that I can think of from the day under the heading: Good Things That Happened Today. It isn’t hard to think of things. As with anything in life — when you pause to take an inventory — there is much more going on than that which skims the surface.
After I finish my Good Things list, I then write as many things that I can think of under the heading: My Takeaways on Life in the Current Moment. When I pause to think of My Takeaways, all sorts of good things start to burble forth — things that hitherto felt like an obstacle or a challenge or a frustration. It’s like magic. The weird stuff suddenly starts to transform into a better place.
For example, imagine that you are making an offer to purchase what you perceive to be your Dream Home. And we’re talking Dream Home, people. You are convinced that this house is It. It is exactly what you want to buy and to live in for the rest of your life — or at the very least the next decade. In your Good Things list, you write: I made an offer on my Dream Home today!!!!!
But then life intervenes. Another offer comes in on the same day as yours, but $10,000 higher than your offer. And to make matters worse for you, their financing is in perfect order. Guess whose offer gets accepted? You feel bummed! That was your house! Not theirs!
The days pass and you search for things to put down on your Good Things list. You might even write under Takeaways: I learned that it is best to remove such high emotion from a business deal. Something like this. But then. Something really crazy happens. You read about an opportunity to go to Ireland and serve as an intern at this amazing art school. It’s your dream!! You apply. You get accepted. Guess what? You’re going to Ireland for a full year! Woot!
This adventure gets listed under Good Things. In addition to recording this adventure to Ireland on your list, you write, I‘m so glad that that house deal fell through! Thank you!!! on the line directly below your entry about the Ireland opportunity. You see the correlation so clearly. In fact — even better yet — you feel the correlation and you experience an understanding that calms your soul and quells your frustrations about the house deal falling through. All is right with the world and you marvel at how things just work out!
You get the idea. The seemingly bad breaks that occur in life have all the potential to set us up for something even better. You just have to be looking. Be aware. Be open to seeing the “bad stuff” as “potential good stuff.” That there are Takeaways, if you only look. Life events aren’t always easy to dissect into lists, but I find that if I really stretch and embrace both the Good Things and the Takeaways . . . I learn a lot about me and how I can be happy in the flow of the present moment.
How about you? Do you want to join me in my Good Things/Takeaway challenge? If you want a PDF to download to get you started, just submit your email address and I’ll send it to you. It’s fun to turn things around to a place that allows you to embrace that which seemed like such a bummer.
As for me? Well, I thought that it was going to be smooth and perfect sailing as I prepared to go forth to Ireland . . . but the art internship fell through — something about something occurred, which meant I wasn’t going away to Ireland for a year.
Now, this unwelcome news certainly wasn’t expected, but I am learning as a result of my daily lists. Instead of listing the loss of my Ireland trip in my Takeaway list, I recorded it immediately in my Good Things list. After all, I am learning about this life stuff in a new way that is changing my mind and my heart. I know that something good is happening right now . . . and I am trimming the unexpected starboard list of the boat that I thought was set to sail for Ireland. It’s a good thing that there were life rafts on that boat!
And I am ready for the next adventure.
Who knows what’s next? I don’t. Be it a Good Thing or a Takeaway, I am learning that what works best is for me to be open. To understand that I don’t have a bird’s-eye view of every little piece that has been set in motion. To be me and to be happy and to have a light heart. To stop complaining and to start paying better attention.
True Directions & Higher Ground
Wise words and beautiful music to point you in your true directions:
theunseenwordsproject.com
“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.” – Seneca
“To accomplish great things we must dream as well as act. – Anatole France
“Determine that the thing can and shall be done and then we shall find the way.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” – Napoleon Hill
Happy Tuesday, good people. It is my hope that you have a day of True Directions. Follow that dream.
Please, click Play and listen to this fantastic music from Playing for Change: such beautiful people offering such wonderful music. If I watch this once, I have to watch it twice.
The Meaning in the Count: Making Life a Noncount Noun
Numbers.
When I really stop to think, my Conscious Day is spent counting. It starts out with counting and it ends with counting. Minutes left on my snooze alarm. Pounds on the bathroom scale. Dollars in my checking account. Minutes before I have to leave for work. Pages completed on my writing project. Calories. Fat grams. Minutes. Hours. Shots of coffee. Pieces of toast. Am I the only one who is consumed with and by counting?
Counting and measuring and weighing. Reality dictates that I take care of my health and that I maintain a healthy weight. That I pay my bills on time. That I be punctual at work. That I move my dream project forward. That I hold myself to some level of accountability concerning my food choices. That I caffeine-ate fully and properly each morning. That I try to stay under the speed limit when I am running late for work. That I care about things in life that involve the measuring and weighing by number.
I know me. Without counting, life would be a free-for-all that does not allow for any accountability to myself or to others. While I think on this, I search for the value, the meaning in the count. We have all wrestled with the concept of weighing quality over quantity. But even here . . . we are still measuring and weighing the benefits. We are taught to think that quality is more important than quantity. But still. Like the little girl that would rather have five pennies over one nickel, there are areas in my life where I tend to shoot for quantity.
Quantity in my hand. Quality of the moment. Where is the Real Value in the midst of the day and its ticking clock? Daily, I put my day on pause for five minutes of meditation. Are these five minutes worth more than five minutes spent watching silly videos on youtube? Research tells me that, yes, meditation is so good for us on so many levels. And I will continue to take those five to reset my inner self. But why do we judge ourselves so harshly when we aren’t doing that which is “good for us”? Yes, I know that I can lose that final ten pounds, but is it worth beating myself up each time I get on the scale? Am I really going to care, one way or the other, once I hit that Maui beach in December? After all, it’s difficult to be hard on yourself when you are living in paradise.
But being a linguist, I very much like the semantics that extend beyond grammatical agreements. For example, we English speakers agree to add the letter -s to most nouns to make them plural. Lest we get into the exceptions such as person/people, tooth/teeth, mouse/mice, and ox/oxen, we can agree that adding the letter -s to a noun will signify that we dealing with the Concept of More Than One.
And then there are those tricky count and noncount nouns and their plural forms or lack therein. According to the Purdue OWL, The Basic Rules for count and noncount nouns are as follows:
A count noun is one that can be expressed in plural form, usually with an “s.” For example, “cat—cats,” “season—seasons,” “student—students.” A noncount noun is one that usually cannot be expressed in a plural form. For example, “milk,” “water,” “air,” “money,” “food.” Usually, you can’t say, ‘He had many moneys’ . . .
Count nouns refer to things that exist as separate and distinct individual units. They usually refer to what can be perceived by the senses. Noncount nouns refer to things that can’t be counted because they are thought of as wholes that can’t be cut into parts. They often refer to abstractions and occasionally have a collective meaning.
There is simply so much cool stuff going on there. Quantity vs. quality. Count vs. noncount. We think of a life — a count noun — and we count the number of lives on the planet. But when we think of our our own life? We think “in terms of wholes that can’t be cut up into pieces.” It’s one whole life. It’s my life! And like grass, rice, and money . . . we don’t actually cut our own life up into pieces . . . even when we think in terms of annual events such as birthdays and anniversaries. It’s all one big whole that we truly prefer not to relegate to the Noun Category of Count. We want to make it count in the ways that are important . . . not in some grammatical or statistical way.
There is counting . . . and then there is making life count. As I go through the days and I count and I measure the pluralizations that I prioritize . . . I wonder. I wonder about the importance of quotas at work and pounds on the scale and hits on my website. I wonder about making my life count. So much to wonder about. Thank God that wonder is a verb in this context. Otherwise, I would be inclined to start counting the many wonders in the world around me.
My advice to self: Just live and give it your best in the moment. You’ve got this. While I appreciate the concepts of mindfulness and how important it is to be aware and to be positive, there is more. There is life as a noncount noun. It’s okay to count the little things as long as I remember the bigger picture. And sometimes it is so hard to keep sight of this enormous, huge, ginormous Universe of which I am but a tiny speck.
I think I answered my own Life Question About Counting. Stop counting. And when I do count — which I will surely continue to do — I will try to do so with wild abandon and appreciation for the abundance within life’s “separate and distinct individual units.”
How big is your Brave?
How big is your Brave?
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” She also said, “Do at least one thing every day that scares you.” Eleanor Roosevelt was not one to ignore our human need to be brave. Bravery. It calls to us and it asks us to listen. And to act. To do that which intimidates us yet still draws our attention, rallies our inner forces, and knits our talents together. To simply be who we are and to not worry about what others may say or think. As my wise, wise sissy tells me, “What another person thinks is none of your business.” Truth, Sis. This is one of the many reasons I appreciate you.
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. Do the thing you think you cannot do.” I strongly suspect that Eleanor was one heck of an advocate. I surely would want her on my team.
This song (video below) by Sara Bareilles is inspiring to me. And it is so sweet, too! Firstly, I very much like the concept/quality/action/trait (I don’t know what to call it) of Bravery. When I act in Bravery, I am stretched in ways that preclude my ego and encourage me to stand up and take a stand. For others. For me. And for those who don’t have a voice. When I am Brave, I give myself permission to say or do something that might lead to judgment or reprisal . . . but I say or do it anyway because my moral compass is in the driver’s seat. Being more of an introvert, afterward, I am always a little surprised and shook up that I took a stand without even really thinking about. It just felt like the right thing to do.
I also like that the video below chose dancing on a public street to symbolize Brave Expression. Have you ever danced in public when others are looking at you and saying, “Huh?” Or have you ever been the first one out on the dance floor? Or do you dance for the security cameras just because they are there?
See, that’s the thing. Dancing is one of those forms of personal expression that can be intimidating to a lot of people. I think this is true because dancing taps into a part of our inner soul and allows it a splashy escape to the outside world. Very few people think that they, themselves, are amazing dancers. Am I a fantastic dancer? No, not really. Do I love dancing? Yes! This is why I don’t want to wait for permission and squander some awesome dance music while waiting for someone else to break the ice and get the party started on the dance floor. I guess I feel that there is a shortage of live-band, dance-worthy music in my life. . . so, as a rule, I’m not going to miss a single second. It is so fun to dance!
Click on the aqua-blue link below for your free journal download. It is written with the idea of inspiring Brave in your life. An action of being Brave provides one of life’s rewards that leaves a shadow of inspiration behind. It doesn’t feel like it stays for very long, but I think that it does. I believe that being Brave grows us from a deep part within.
Your Amazing Aqua-Blue Journal Prompt:
Your Brave. journaling prompt
[Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your journaling binder. Take the writing journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart. After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say. The only one. Relax, read, think, feel, listen, write. Repeat. And enjoy the journey. It is a fine one, and one that is perfectly-made just for you, I promise. Life is meant to be grown.]
Sara Bareilles – Brave
Try Something New: What’s Stopping You?
Is there something that you have been wanting to learn? To do? To try just once to see what it would feel like?
Is the Fear of Failure holding you back? Does it feel like a lack of resources is underwhelming your life? Is there someone in your life who is telling you that you procrastinate and you never finish anything? Is there a voice in your head that always gives you bad advice? Don’t start. You have so much to do around the house. You have to get up early in the morning. You haven’t done laundry for a week. The garage is a disaster.
Do you feel like you simply do not have enough time to even think about starting something new?
You make the choice.
Well, there’s bad news and good news. The bad news: You don’t have enough time. The good news: You do have enough time. You choose which news you want your inner soul to hear. You choose.
I kept delivering the bad news to my heart, my mind, my hands, my spirit, while forestalling the good news for an unspecific time in the mythical future when “I had more time.” I was living in a steady hum of constancy that was focusing on everything that wasn’t quite right with my life: playing an elaborate shell game with finances, juggling too many jobs with school and homework, barely keeping up with household chores, and feeling like my life had all the fun sucked out of it by some cosmic vacuum cleaner. All of this MindSpeak was proving to be so exhausting to my Inner Spirit that I simply stopped trying to inject newness or creativity into my day.
It felt like I was buried by life’s stuff.
I wasn’t merely stuck. I was buried. I would find myself paying bills online while listening to a class-assigned podcast while brushing the dog while folding the laundry while feeding the cat. I was all over the place. All of this multi-tasking madness. . . until I thought to add a new personal challenge to the day’s mayhem: Try something new every single day.
In the beginning . . .
In the beginning, this challenge verified the bad news –> it was something that felt like an added extra that felt to be overwhelmingly huge and impossible. My MindSpeak went into hyper-mode: When am I going to have the time to try something new every single day?! My days already feel like pasta in a pot of water — on constant boil and threatening to spill over onto the clean stove top at any given second.
The Wooden Spoon Trick
But I was so craving Different in my life. Better. More centered and mindful. I remembered reading that if you lay a wooden spoon across a pot of boiling pasta that it won’t over-boil. The pasta can boil merrily away with no more messy stove to clean up. So simple and easy . . . and it works! This Wooden Spoon trick reminded me that life need not be so overly complicated. Just try . . . and do . . . and lay the spoon across the pot. And try again. It is absolutely possible to turn a moment of my day into a gesture of mindfulness. I can make it happen. I will make it happen. I scrawled across the top of the wall-mounted white board in my office with my blue marker: You’ve got this! Try Something New! Today! I mean it!
It has proven to be a bit of an experiment to see how it works.
I originally intended on focusing on one single something new to try for the 30 days — in an effort to create a positive new habit. My thought: develop some consistency and build some sense of discipline by adding only one thing for an extended period of time. Like one of those scary-clown jack-in-the-boxes, all sorts of ideas came popping up out of my mind’s Procrastination Department. Play piano every single day. Save on gas and ride my scooter to work every single day. Eat a healthy breakfast every single day. Work out every single day. Sort through one box in the garage and get rid of stuff. Do one or all of these things every single day for 30 days.
What did these things have in common?
But I found that these ideas weren’t working — and they weren’t very inspiring either. And besides, everything that I was thinking of involved fulfilling some obligatory should: be healthier, practice music, save the environment, clean the garage. All of which are very lovely ideas, but still . . . This challenge was supposed to be fun and invigorating.
As I was casting about for the best way to implement my challenge, I discovered that was working was trying something different, unique, and unexpected every single day. Examples? I started piano lessons — and have been pretty disciplined regarding playing everyday. I went dancing at a casino — great stories as a result of this adventure. I broke out the new orange-and-white kitchen towels that had been preserved in their pristine state in my kitchen drawer — now brightening my kitchen and thoroughly broken in with the hues of red wine, carrot juice, and tomato sauce. I introduced myself to a stranger — and we have since become acquaintances.
You get the idea. I called an old friend just to say hi. I bought Swiss chard at the vegetable stand. I wrote a long overdue letter. I told someone about my current writing project. I had dinner at a restaurant that I had been wanting to check out. I took photographs of garbage. I added kale to my morning smoothie. I had fun with some color and painted on canvas. And another new thing for me? I set aside judgment of “what is good” when I was done painting. I simply valued the experience and the time spent swirling color around.
I started reading my horoscope. I subscribed to a new-word-of-the-day website. I started blogging. I bought three tiny wooden tops, which are proving to create a really relaxing “stop point” during work and study time at my desk. I spin the tops and, while they are spinning, I do absolutely nothing. I learned that an absence of activity can feel pretty good.
My Try Something New Challenge has proven to be that magical wooden spoon on the pasta pot. I not only have enough time to Try Something New, I have plenty of time. Life’s harried pace has reduced its boil a bit. Not completely, but a bit, nonetheless. Nothing is boiling over and making a spilly mess that I have to clean up.
It feels like I have effected change. Like the motion of the little tops, the vibrational ripples have been spreading. There have been some really fun and surprising and happy results from being willing to shake things up. I don’t understand the way that time has expanded, but it has. What I learned about this personal challenge: The hard part was starting. The easy part is enjoying the expansive feelings of reward and appreciation.
You’ve got this!
Would you like to share in this challenge with me? Is there something new that you have been really wanting to do?
Please, leave a reply and post your One New Thing and share how it is enriching your life. We all would love to hear about it!
Life is a lively event.
Try something new, spin some tops, & effect the ripples of happifying change.
What’s stopping you?
Leap & Land with a Bang
Check out this BBC video of mobula rays and their artistic, acrobatic, and aerobatic show. They are spectacular. Who knew that rays could leap — and land — so amazingly? Their landing sends a huge boom through the water. The higher they leap, the bigger the bang upon landing. It is believed that the rays that make the biggest impact, give themselves the best odds of standing apart from the herd and of leaving with a mate.
Watch these fabulous flying rays (3:12):
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150512-watch-these-giant-rays-fly
Mating rituals aside . . . when in a group, how do you stand out from the crowd? How do you get noticed? How do you draw attention to yourself? This is not about ego-grabbing narcissism that demands every speck of attention in a social setting. This is about expressing yourself in your immediate world such that you get noticed, feel understood, and build the best opportunities to connect with others. Connection . . . it truly is what makes the world go around and is what gives significant meaning to what we do when we aren’t in the midst of connecting. We, as humans, need connection . . . why not do it with a figurative bang?
So, taking a cue from the mobula rays . . . the higher the leap, the bigger the bang upon landing and the better chance to stand out from the crowd. What is one thing you can do today or tomorrow or the next day to get noticed? To make a difference? To be you? To exercise your unique you-ness? Give yourself some credit for being important in the grand scheme of things. Leap spectacularly and land with a big bang.
Being able to think of something that you will actually do might be a stretch for us introverts. It might feel unnecessary or unbecoming or way out of one’s wheelhouse. But why not try one little thing, make a change-up in your wardrobe. Skip down the sidewalk to retrieve your mail. Engage with the barista as you wait for your Americano. Leaping is different for everyone; it is something only you can define for yourself.
Think One New Thing. Leap and land and leap all over again. It looks like these mobula rays are expending a tremendous amount of energy to go flying out of the water. This is something that I think we sometimes want to avoid: The water feels so comfy. I don’t think I can leap very high. I’m not very athletic, after all. Landing might cause me pain. Someone might laugh at me or think I am weird. Simply put? Expend the energy. Your life will become different because of it. I promise.
And the thing about leaping is that there is gravity on this planet. You will land. With a bang. Why not make it a Big Bang and stand out from the crowd? Take a stand for you. For a friend or a colleague or a student or a child or a stranger. And for the world that surrounds you. The Universe will thank you for it.
Click on the sky blue link below for today’s journal prompt. Have fun discovering (and making!) your leap!
Leap high and land with a bang. journaling prompt
[Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your journaling binder. Take the writing journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart. After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say. The only one. Relax, read, think, feel, listen, write. Repeat. And enjoy the journey. It is a fine one, and one that is perfectly-made just for you, I promise. Life is meant to be grown.]
Creativity: Is it overrated?
I was flipping through the pages of my 5-year journal . . . and of the 1,825 answers that it could contain, I have filled in 53 answers. As I was reading and reflecting on what I had written, I came across this question:
What’s the most creative thing you’ve done recently?
My answer struck me as honest, amusing-to-me, and a little comforting:
This is scary. I can’t think of something! Help! Hmmm . . . I glued pictures of some birds in my journal. I made a beautiful, foamy latte. I made veggie-lentil marinara.
Reading this, I am struck by a note of (1) desperation — fearing that the Creativity Police was going to swing by and give me an F+ in Creativity if I didn’t think of something Artsy and (2) a deeply-forgiving spirit — realizing that I didn’t feel like I had to report anything stellar like painting a gallery-worthy canvas or mastering the tricky 16th-note measures of my old friend “Allegro” on the violin. I now know that on May 19, 2013, veggie-lentil marinara felt like a creative endeavor. This is why I love journaling so much. It reminds us of who we are.
Gluing pictures of birds in my journal is not how I externally define creativity. I expect from myself a more legacy-laden result when I say the word creativity. Still, there is much to be said for celebrating the day to day. We can’t all be fabulously creative every single moment . . . or can we?
So . . . What would be my answer to this question today? Hmm . . . let’s see . . .
Two weeks ago, when my two best girl friends came to visit, we got out a stack of small canvases and we painted. We didn’t watch a movie. We didn’t go out for dinner. Rather we snacked on a jumbo bag of chips and salsa, sipped wine, and painted for hours. It was fun, rewarding, stimulating, and enlightening. I made an enormous mess and, being the kind of friends that they are, they helped me to clean up my spatters that had followed an unanticipated trajectory across the room.
There was also an element of repeat 2013 Creativity in this day, proving to me that some things are still a priority and indicative of my preferences: I made us beautiful, foamy lattes, we went bird watching (Have you ever seen a Stellar’s jay “ant”?) and, for dinner, we ate some crazy concoction made from leftovers from the fridge that involved lentils. Lentils, oh lentils . . . how you are a constant in my life! lol!
Creativity. It isn’t what you make that makes you a Creative. It’s the feeling you create while you are creating. Be it something as simple as cutting and pasting images of birds or something as rewarding as nailing those last few measures of “Allegro” — it is all a symbol of how I choose to feel while I experience and savor time. So simple really when I remove all self-imposed external expectations.
It is so easy to look at others and remark on their gifts and talents. We think because we aren’t mastering Sample A, our own Sample B somehow doesn’t quite measure up. But measure up to what? If we aren’t running marathons, our 2-mile walk doesn’t seem very significant. If we aren’t hanging our work on a public wall, it doesn’t seem like it is very good. If we aren’t performing at Benaroya Hall, then our music doesn’t measure up (pun intended). I don’t know. Maybe it’s all about perception, self-perception and otherwise. Forgiveness, self-forgiveness and otherwise. And dissatisfaction, self-dissatisfaction and otherwise — knowing deep inside that we aren’t listening to our Higher Self’s prompting to become who we really are.
Click on the aqua-blue hyperlink below for today’s journal prompt. It is a fun question that may inspire some surprising and reassuring answers for you in how you view your creative self.
Click on the aqua-blue link below:
Creativity. Is It Overrated. journaling prompt
Life is a lively event. Live it like you mean it. What’s stopping you?
[Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your journaling binder. Take the writing journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart. After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say. The only one. Relax, read, think, feel, listen, write. Repeat. And enjoy the journey. It is a fine one, and one that is perfectly-made just for you, I promise.]
Your Personality . . . & the Glory of the Choice
Your personality . . . what is it exactly? Aside from the usual adjectives of fun or moody or sunny or temperamental or intense or Type A or laid back or . . . what exactly? What does it really mean to be assigned a personality type?
We’ve all pondered the big debate of Nature vs. Nurture . . . how the spark of life is blessed/cursed/or combination-therein by congenital behavior . . . or wait! Is it actually shaped by environmental and emotional factors? And then these is all of the vice-versa stuff that leads one to accept and embrace both and then not think much about it.
Fascinating research points to many interesting findings that help us to understand Who We Really Are, our emotional and social intelligence, and our perception of positive and negative influences. Nature or Nurture? It is an enormous question that no one can really answer with total authority. Take the story of the two children — identical twins, actually — standing on the ocean shore. They are enjoying themselves while the salt water is gently lapping at their toes. Suddenly, a rogue wave washes over the top of them. The same wave, the same temperature of water, the same element of surprise. One of the twins starts to cry and scream and run from the water. The other twin splashes back at the wave while laughing. While this story would neither withstand nor support the rigors of a research study focused on Nature vs. Nurture, I like it nonetheless. It gives me pause: Why not laugh? It’s a heck of a lot more fun than crying and screaming.
And in the midst of all of this wondering and debating and agreeing, I do believe that there is much to be said for the concept of timshel — the Hebrew word for thou mayest.
When I think on topics of this sort, my mind wanders back to a Time of Great Impressionability in my life, and I was reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. What a book! Well, “the story bit deeply into me,” and Lee’s treatise on timshel has stayed with me all of these curious years later — a testimony to the notion that life is one great impressionable moment after another.
It is my hope that sharing this gem of Steinbeck’s brilliance and wisdom will not act as any sort of spoiler. The book is brilliant and one worth reading. Like life, Steinbeck’s writing is intense and provocative and profound. He writes the sort of story that stays with you throughout the years. I thank Mr. Steinbeck for opening my eyes, my mind, my heart, my soul, and my sense of wonder to the notion of thou mayest: “the glory of the choice.”
Last week, I came across this quite lovely Personality Test online. I normally don’t click on these tests, expecting some sort of hook to be set before you receive your “results,” but something prompted me to go ahead and try this one. Before reading any further, go ahead and click on the link and visualize your responses to the prompts.
All done?
What do you think? How much of the explanation of your visuals did you feel was accurate? At the very least, I felt that I was given a sideways glimpse into me — parts of me that are actually true that I generally don’t consciously associate with my “personality.” I think about Steinbeck’s artistic weaving of timshel into East of Eden . . . and I am reminded that thou mayest carries with it a personal(-ity) responsibility of creative and paradigm-shifting mindfulness that requires daily cultivation, acknowledgement, and celebration on my part.
Personality assessment aside . . . overall, we need not be so hard on ourselves. I think we sometimes embrace the opinions of people — people who truly don’t know us — with far too much zeal, and we assign too much authority to the editorializing that is done by others. We have a proclivity toward jumping into the sinkhole: a morass of self-blame, regret, and guilt that we assign to nature- and nurture-defining personality quirks . . . epic actions that play with our hearts and attempt to define how we choose to forge present moments into future goals and dreams. Or . . . is this just my personality?
I used to have a quote taped up in every room of my house: Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen. In the midst of one particularly Challenging Time, I was re-reading the quote, and I realized that I needed to make an edit. I crossed out about to happen and scribbled in happening right now:
Always believe that something wonderful is happening right now.
The current paradigm of Overwhelm in that moment screeched to a halt, and life felt like it took a gentler curve toward heart-healing and happiness. When I realized that I had a choice to become someone new on the inside, my whole life shifted. This epiphany didn’t segue into some neat and tidy story-book ending, but it did nudge me into a new place, such that I could get back into a timshel state of mind: “the glory of the choice.”
I leave you today with the prayer, the wish, the hope, and the thought that today is a good day for you. A truly good day. One of gratitude and filled with micro moments that tell you that Now is Now and life is evolving, constantly evolving, as something that is wonderful. If this moment isn’t all that great, just wait for the next one. It will be here before you know it — full of promise and full of timshel. With some refining, life really can be borne from “the glory of the choice: . . . keeping “the way open.”
Click on the highlighted link below to download today’s free journaling exercise. Have fun journaling and putting a new spin on perceptions and keeping your way open!
The Glory of the Choice. A Different Spin. journaling prompt
A reminder that gifts of beauty await when we keep our hearts open. So lovely.
[P.S. Here is the real Spoiler Alert: To read a longer excerpt that discusses timshel in greater detail from East of Eden, click here. If you are planning to read the book . . . do not click here.]
Confidence . . . an Appreciation of Self
Confidence. What is it? Confidence is defined as “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities” (Google: define). We read and hear a lot about appreciation. Appreciation for our blessings, our possessions, our jobs, our health, our friends, our family, our senses, our brains, our abilities. Technology, nature, transportation, travel, beauty. We appreciate others for what they do and for the joy they bring into our lives. We appreciate how they love us through those thick-and-thin moments. We reciprocate and make them coffee in the morning. We send a nice email to someone at work. We let a stranger go ahead of us in traffic. We leave a love note on the mirror in the bathroom. We kiss each other good bye each morning. 
We pick up the slack on a project with a deadline. We choose to be gracious when we don’t feel like it. We laugh at someone’s bad joke. We sky-lift a worm on the sidewalk after a rain to safety. Little things.
When was the last time you paused to appreciate an ability or a quality you have? Really appreciate it. A quirk or a talent? A spot of brilliance or a burst of intuition? A kind gesture you have made that was based more on intuition than anything else? Do we even notice when we are expressing a kindness? Or do we continue to be hard on ourselves – when we might not have been exactly perfect in that instantaneous snapshot of time that we call Right Now?
We tell others what we enjoy about them or about what they do to contribute or what it is that makes them unique and lovable. It seems that this is absent on a self-level – on a level that escapes the traps and chains of egoism or conceit or narcissism. Just plain and simple appreciation.
What do you appreciate about yourself? What one little thing have you done or thought today that you appreciate? Maybe you turned a mad-attitude into an accepting-attitude. Maybe you realized that you have been offering resistance in a situation over which you have zero control. Zero. Maybe you made some pumpkin pie and delivered it to your significant other. Or maybe you gave someone a hug – someone who really needed a hug in that moment. Or maybe you told someone you love him when it just felt right in that second to say it aloud.
When we experience a moment of confidence, maybe it is as simple as acknowledging the little things that we do each and every day. Moments that assure ourselves that we are on this planet for a reason. For a good and mighty and blessed reason. I believe that there are many moments throughout the day when one has an opportunity to give a high five or an elbow bump to your little ol’ self.
Would the world be a more self-actualized place if we were kinder to our own selves? I think so.
The Unseen Words Project 