happiness

Yes, you can go home again . . . if only in your dreams.

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment
ardoch II

My Hometown

Last night, I had vivid dreams of my childhood home in the Red River Valley of North Dakota.  The place where I learned to swim in post-thunderstorm mud puddles, to build elaborate snow and ice tunnels, to discover the magic of reading, to try to walk to the end of a rainbow, to revere and emulate Mae West, to respect the wisdom of my older siblings, and to understand that life sometimes deals out unfairness without warning.

These dreams of last night involved highlights of childhood that were happy, peaceful, and creative.  They were moments that contained laughter, bliss, and sibling camaraderie.  It was a rare gift of benevolent recall via slideshow with me starring as my own little-girl self.  The dreams allowed me to visit with my father, who recently passed over in December, and he took me by the hand and led me on a tour of highlights that reminded me that my early life, indeed, offered shouts of joy that have somehow become strangely muffled in the memories of my adulthood.

Life is what I make of it.  And so is fun and my sense of playfulness.  This past weekend, while writing out my to-do lists on my wall-mounted white board, I caught myself wondering,  This is nothing but work and chores and items of destined procrastination . . . What happened to simply having fun?  I wrote “HAVE FUN!” at the bottom of the lists for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday going forward.

Still, I started to wonder: What has happened (!?) to me and my life such that I am having to start prioritizing fun?   What happened to getting out there and having some good ol’, mud-puddle-stomping, spontaneous fun?  

In an effort to re-gain spontaneous Fun in My Life (back to that concept of planning and prioritizing again!), I am going to try an experiment.  As I seem to need the reminder, I am going to write on my list of to-dos everyday for one month:

Have some fun . . . 

And cross it off my list.  And just see what happens.  And enjoy life.  I want to move out of my current state of Get-‘er-Done to a renewed paradigm of Have-Some-Fun.

Anyone out there want to join me?  And keep me posted on what you do?  For me, it’s time to re-claim that girl who liked to sit on the front porch rail of our house, swinging my legs, and belting out Mae West quotes and tunes (C’mon up and see me sometime!) to any passerby who traveled through our tiny town.  It’s time to start having some Fun!

Mae West: You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

ardoch

Main Street, Hometown

Timshel & Epigenetics

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Earlier in the week, I posted about your personality (Nature versus Nurture) and the Glory of the Choice (timshel).  These thoughts stayed with me throughout the week. . . and then I came across this TED talk today about epigenetics: “How the Choices You Make Can Affect Your Genes” by Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna.  Here is a summary of this TED talk: “Here’s a conundrum: Identical twins originate from the same DNA … so how can they turn out so different — even in traits that have a significant genetic component? Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna explains that while nature versus nurture has a lot to do with it, a deeper, related answer can be found within something called epigenetics.”

If you have 5:02 today, view this TED talk.  The information is very compelling, satisfying, and inspiring.  The way that it is explained in the talk is to “think of DNA as a recipe book.”  The narrator goes on to explain how “genes in DNA are expressed when they’re read and transcribed into RNA . . . which is translated into proteins into structures called ribosomes.”

And so the story unravels into the most intricate, yet simple, explanation as to how the choices you make in life very possibly affect your genes.  I have spoken with people who have done Genetic Re-writing work, and it now makes more plausible sense to me.  This is interesting research and, after thinking on the wisdom of Steinbeck’s timshel, it all ties together in a very pretty spiritual-genetic bow: thou mayest  + genetics play a synchronous role in how we experience Life.

Sometimes when things come together like this, Life feels both larger and smaller than I could have ever imagined.   Taking in the micro-vast world of genetics coupled with the infinite non-perimeters of the universe does a pretty good job of answering all of my questions for this week.  Sometimes I just have to sit back and say, “This is all quite amazing . . . and I don’t even need to understand the detailed intricacies to be a Believer.  I believe.

If you have a moment, please, do view this TED talk.  If you have ever wondered about Life on Levels of Infinite Curiosity, it will not disappoint.

How the choices you make can affect your genes – Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna

pencil stubYour journal prompt today (click below) is as simple and as a complex as is this topic of re-writing your genetics.  Keep your writing clean and simple and don’t go down any rabbit holes or garden paths.  Keep it easy and uncomplicated.  Listen to your Higher Self and record what it has to say.

Epigenetics and Choice. 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.]

 

 

 

 

Arise & Whistle

/ Kennedy Farr / 5 Comments

Greetings to everyone on this very lovely Saturday morning.  What a perfect day for music and journaling!

Below is a youtube of “Blackbird” by Eddie Vedder.  I have heard many covers of this song, but what makes this one so special is the participation from the audience and the appreciation that Eddie Vedder expresses for their beautiful whistling.  I just love it!  I don’t know about you, but this song was so sweet I had to listen to it twice.

There are clearly days when it seems as if my life’s level of Whistling Participation is at a pretty low low.  I find myself wrapped up within the cocoon of my work, my family, my laundry list of concerns, my creativity, my chores and to-dos.  I keep things close and don’t stretch in any extraordinary directions, really.  I am like a little embodied capsule of Me that doesn’t live much beyond what is required of me or what pops up in the way of obligatory energy requirements.

“You were only waiting for this moment to arise . . .”

This is not to say that I am slumping through daily life with my head down and my eyes on the ground.  I do keep my eyes and my heart open.  But still.  I know that there are “moments” when I feel prompted to “arise” and I consciously choose to ignore or sidestep the opportunities that call me to action.  I realize that we can’t be “on” all of the time . . . yet today I am thinking that, perhaps with a little conscious and sub-conscious awareness on my part, I could be making a significant difference in random moments that could do with a little bit of “arising.” How about you?  Do you ever feel this way?

If you click on the link below, you will find a journaling prompt for today . . . one that encourages you to participate and to support in a wee small way today.

Arise and Whistle. journaling prompt

Live is a lively event.  Here’s your moment.  What’s stopping you?

The First Sentence of Your Autobiography

/ Kennedy Farr / 6 Comments

I was reading through a journal of mine that dates back to 2013.  The journal was the type that has cute and interesting short questions at the top of the page: Who do you want to know better?  How much coffee have you had today?  What gives you comfort right now?  Then I came across this question:

June 20, 2013: Write the first sentence of your autobiography.

My response?

“I always believed that I was a changeling . . . that I had been swapped out in the earliest days of my infancy by a hearty clan of Brownies  –Brownies who were capable of hoisting a 10-pound infant above their heads and then hauling ass to deposit me in my new cradle .”

I read this now and I laugh!  Such a testimony of Disconnection to My Biological Roots!  As a very young child, I did truly believe that I was a Changeling.  But maybe we all feel like this to some degree.  Life being a curious event, it seems to be natural to wonder about the roots that have fed and grown us through the years.

How about you?  What would you write for the first sentence of your autobiography?  Click below for a link to your daily journal writing.  Have some fun with the questions.  Dare to be weird and write what first comes to mind.

The Weird Zone. journaling prompt

Your Personality . . . & the Glory of the Choice

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Vision Board 058Your 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.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliapugachevsky/this-cube-personality-test-will-absolutely-blow-your-mind?utm_term=.onK9zJNbz&sub=4259074_8744597

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.”

toaster ovenI 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

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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.]

Just Breathe

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

This is such a lovely and wonderful song.  Every time I listen to it, I am reminded to Just Breathe.

Today, just breathe in the moment and “count on both hands”  your blessings of appreciation and gratitude.

Click on the link below for today’s journal entry.

Count on both hands. 10 things of appreciation.

toaster ovenWhile you are journaling, please, listen to this beautiful song by Eddy Vedder.  It is inspiring in that quiet, rich way that leads you to look a little deeper for all of the beauty that is hidden in each and every moment.  Happy journaling!

And I appreciate YOU for visiting The Unseen Words Project today.  You make such a difference in my day!

Fearless or Irresponsible? Living In the Overlap.

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

For whatever reason, I was thinking today about a time in my life when I was acting quite irresponsibly.  At least that is how it must have appeared from an outsider’s perspective.  To me, and with a goodly measure of hindsight, what felt to be intrepid was probably pretty rash.  And maybe even a little naive and dumb.

I was also thinking today about times in my life when I was acting quite fearlessly and how life was just one long ride of incredible excitement.  Every day was new and different and challenges abounded as a result of this fearlessness.  I was riding a big wave and somehow managing to stay on the board.  I look back and think, Huh.  How did that even work?  

Fearless?  Irresponsible?  Is there even a line between the two?  Maybe life is one big Venn diagram . . . a symbol of where we place our confidence in life, in love, in ourselves.  I don’t know.  In that we are never completely aware of the full consequences of our actions, it is unclear as to how willy-nilly my behavior truly was.  And continues to be.  Still, it seems to be true that all kinds of crazy and dumb can lead to positive outcomes.  It sometimes comes down to the question of What we are willing to do for the pursuit of love and happiness?  What kind of risk are we willing to take?

Click on the link below and print out this journaling exercise.  Do some free associating with the diagram.  I’m not suggesting any empirical outcome.  I am simply asking you to consider that what you might carry as a regret might not have been as dumb and irresponsible as you think it was or is.

Life happens.  Consider the alternative.  I’d rather be living in the Overlap or even the Outer Fringes . . . knowing that I am willing to take the risk to try.  Just try.

Fearless or Irresponsible. Living in the Overlap.

[Three-hole punch this exercise and put it in your special journaling binder.  It is so rewarding to look back over writing that is honest and that encourages you to grow.  My journaling friends all say that they are glad they have saved their writing in one binder or notebook.  They also say that they are happy that they dated their writing and recorded their location.  You might be in the park, at your desk, or on a ferry.  You might be on an exotic vacattoaster ovenion or you might be waiting for your laundry to finish drying at the laundromat.  No matter where you are when you are recording your thoughts and feelings, when re-reading your entries at a later date . . . your spatial memory will trigger the Feelings of Epiphany you felt when you were discovering your Voice and your Truth.  Happy writing!]

 

Follow Your Own Heart

/ Kennedy Farr / 3 Comments

Almanac Directions . . .

“From my own experience, I want to say that you should follow your heart, and the mind will follow you. Believe in yourself, and you will create miracles. Kailash Satyarthi

Journal prompt for today: It’s time to create some miracles.

Click on the link below:

You can’t get lost if you follow your own heart. Journal prompt

Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your True Directions binder . . . or simply write your three things down in your journal.   Take the 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.

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Confidence . . . an Appreciation of Self

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

kindness confidenceConfidence.  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. toaster oven

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.

self confidence

Meta-Optimism . . . Meta-Living

/ Kennedy Farr / 5 Comments

meta. 6a00d8341da2a953ef01156f5e41af970c-pi

Meta.

meta . . . referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential [Google’s “define: meta”] 

Metacognition is thinking about thinking.  Metadata is data about data.  Meta-joke is joking about jokes.  Meta-discussion is discussion about discussion. And then there is meta-emotion: emotion about emotion. Whew.

This past week, I was listening to a friend who was needing to take care of some personal business that involved a massive amount of emotional energy.  It set me to remembering some of my rather spectacular meta-emotional experiences from the past. She shared what she was feeling and what was compelling her to move forward in her life in this particular relationship.  As we talked, I sensed a thickening layer of doubt and dread and uncertainty blanketing her true emotions.

It was as if there were a miasma of other emotions fogging in and layering on top of her Truth.  Feelings of fear and awkwardness and regret and  . . ..  I had to stop her and ask: What are you really truly feeling?  What is the bottom-line feeling that is motivating you to act?  What is it that you truly want?

It made me think of what I call some of life’s Liver Moments.  I once read that the liver is composed of sheets of tissue that are extraordinarily connective.  That it is a mass of layers that is seemingly impossible to sew up and repair.  Insert suture.  Oops.  That might not have been such a good idea.  Try again in a new spot.  Nope, not there.  Oops, the needle just messed that area up.  Yikes.  Now there is a bigger mess to repair.

You get the idea.  Whether this is true in the anatomical and surgical sense in the life of a human liver, I don’t know.  I have not researched the anatomy adequately . . . I read of this in reference to damaged connections and irreparable relationships, so I suspect it is possible that the author was stretching his or her simile a bit. Trying to fix things sometimes makes a muck of things.  We sometimes believe in the possibility of healing when trying to re-connect.  To repair and to heal.

But still.  There is always the possibility that certain situations are not destined to be patched up like new.  In some relationships, some things are pretty tough to doctor up.  Things are done or not done.  Words are spoken or not spoken.  I love yous are rat-holed in some cubby of the heart.  Patience is discarded.  Kindness is ignored.  Offense is taken.  Affection is withheld.  Green-eyed envy establishes residence.  Fear dominates.  Once that suture goes in, over and over again in an attempt to gain some purchase, maybe it is time to take a step back.  Allow the whole thing to breathe for a bit.  Let the liver have some healing time.  Move in a new direction.  Stop, drop, and roll.

stacks of quilts. 12db09c68d1cd87d57637c79d56379f6There have certainly been times when I have really complicated things by embracing and nurturing some serious meta-emotion.  Emoting about emotions.  Feelings to the exponential square.  I have blanketed emotion upon emotion to the point of suffocating my true feelings.  I was no longer capable of recognizing the core emotion that I was trying to cover up with rational thought.  When finding myself in an emotional sticky wicket, it seems that I always want to know the outcomes well in advance .

Today.  Am I any wiser in the ways of meta-emotion?  I don’t know.  Occasions occur, and I sometimes allow an emotional hijacking to occur.  I go to that place — that blind — that camouflages reality.  I indulge myself by making something bigger than it is.  Still.  There are also those times when I take care of my true emotions and allow them to speak to me in a voice that is much louder than a whisper.  I choose real-time life over what could have been . . . what could be.  

This is powerful.  I can be such a hard-driven optimist at times, I completely ignore all of the true and real signs that are directing or mis-directing me in life.  High performance optimism has rewarded me so well.  But it has also steered me wrong.  I sometimes must caution myself to not always see how things can be.  My life lesson: Be aware of meta-optimism: optimistic about optimism.

The ultimate meta life lesson for me? Aim for Meta-Living: living about living.  Life as a self-referential entity and referring to the conventions of its genre.  Not fighting the Now.  Being in the moment.  Embracing Now.  Setting aside the suture and letting the liver heal and move on without relying on blind and extraordinary optimism as an intervention.  Removing the blankets of emotions that suffocate my soul’s origin.  Allowing my happiness to breathe.

My present moment?  I embrace and subscribe to the state of meta-happy: happy about happiness.  So much more fun!  And so much more real when I allow my emotions, my thoughts, my dreams, my goals, my life’s work to guide me into the conventions of my own happy creativity.  For this and for the people in my life who make my life so much bigger and more wonderful, I feel an abundance of appreciation and gratitude.

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