mindfulness

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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The Mindfulness of Hotcakes and Trapdoors

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

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I made hotcakes this morning.  I mixed up a batch of my special hotcake mix last night using the ingredients that I had on hand. There were a few essential things I was missing, but I feel that I more than made up for these by adding almond meal and toasted coconut.  These hotcakes would never be on an IHOP commercial or in a photograph on the menu. They always pour into odd elliptical shapes — unbecoming to any self-respecting advertised hotcake.  Depending on how well I have managed to pre-heat the skillet, they turn out perfectly golden or unappetizingly pasty-white or sometimes simply compost-worthy.  Today was a good day, and they came out pretty close to just right.  Goldilocks would have had no complaint.

While I was cooking them, it struck me that making hotcakes requires a great deal of mindfulness.  You can’t heat the griddle too quickly.  You need to whisk the batter just so, leaving the correct proportion of lumps.  You have to test the griddle with droplets of water and listen for the sizzle before you pour the first hotcake.

Then comes the waiting.  First, there is a test of patience that rewards you with hotcakes that are just the right color and just the right doneness before you flip them.  Then you wait some more.  It is always tempting to walk away from the stove after you have flipped them.  There are bowls to rinse, syrup to heat, butter to be put on a plate.  More coffee to be made.  Compost to be taken out.

When I do not maintain the necessary mindfulness, the bottom gets too dry or too dark or too crunchy.  These pancakes go to compost pile or to the dogs — who absolutely looooove burnt hotcakes.  I know that it is best to wait.

This morning I waited and was rewarded with the loveliest of hotcakes.  I thought of that maxim “Good things come to those who wait,” and I thought, Yes, this is so true.  About the time I am ready to despair of ever realizing my loftiest of dreams . . . or the time when I feel I am just about ready to touch one of my goals, and it simply dissipates before me . . . or the time when I feel as if all is linking up just so and then something comes along and blows the line up . . . I must remember to think Patience . . . think Hotcakes.

Life always has its twists, turns, spirals, and trap doors.  I would rather keep my eye on the prize and fall into a trap than be warily looking down at the path before me, wondering where the next booby trap is and hoping that I will somehow miraculously avoid it.

I was reading about trapdoor snails and came across this excerpt on why to keep these snails in your pond [http://aqualandpetsplus.com/]:  “All the pond books recommend these belly foots (gastropods) for ponds.   Theoretically, trapdoors make excellent algae eaters.  However, we’ve never been able to measure their effectiveness — even when kept in mass quantities.” 

So, basically, we know that these belly foots work for the reasons we want them to in the pond, but we just can’t measure their effectiveness.  The correlation of gastropods to hotcakes and mindfulness might seem to be a bit of a stretch, but it clicked for me internally.  Perhaps it is the usefulness of maintaining a dream, even when I can’t measure its effectiveness in the present moment.  In other words, keep the dreams in the pond — in mass quantities — and hope for the best end results.  Give up on measuring and simply believe that all is working as it should be.

One more thought: “Trapdoor snails (like most snails) slam their trapdoors when picked up or pestered.”  And some more food for thought regarding dreams, goals, hopes, and opportunities . . . all excellent reminders when keeping goals at the forefront:

  1. When pestered, slam the door.
  2. When obstacles block your path, scoot away as quickly as your belly foot can take you.
  3. Protect the essence of your shell and always maintain mindfulness.
  4. Keep forward progress in motion, even if it feels to be a snail’s pace.
  5. Don’t look back.  Throw away the rearview mirror.
  6. Keep flippin’ hotcakes, don’t mind the burnt ones, and shoot for the moon.

How many times will you try?

/ Kennedy Farr / 3 Comments

embracing-failure-and-my-love-of-data-L-Krvr_Z

What do you think?  “How many times should you try?”  These inspiring examples of people believing in their ideas, skills, and talents are incredibly inspirational. 1500 times to launch Rocky?  Amazing.  1500 times.  Which of my projects do I believe to be so perfect or so inspirational that I am willing to subject my idea to 1499 rejections?  That is a lot of Belief.

So, the question is: How many times should you try?  What project or dream or invention or book or screenplay or song or practice or blog or . . . are you committed to launching?  How many times should you try?  Will you try?

Should is a loaded word in these days of intentional and mindful living.  Google’s “define:should” gives this definition: “used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions.”  Obligation.  Duty.  Correctness.  Criticism.  No wonder many of us bristle when we encounter the word should.   I should do this.  I should have done that.  I should take care of this.  I should be nicer to him.  To her.  To me.   I should have worked harder.  Run harder.  Played harder.  I should be better at that.  This list is endless.  All of the many shoulds.

Coincidence-FateI ask myself: What are some of my common shoulds?  I sometimes think that I am too hard on myself.  And there are those times when I am too quick to step aside and let fate and coincidence charge into each other.

When this happens, I wonder why I seem to take myself out of my own life’s equation — only to later banish myself to the Realm of Should.  I shouldn’t have said that.  I should have stayed home.  I should have been more aware.  I shouldn’t have danced like such a dork.  I should have been more supportive.  I should have been a better self-advocate.  I should have given a hug to that stranger who was crying in the frozen-food section of the grocery story.  I should have been more gracious, kind, loving.   I should have been tougher and just said what needed to be said.

I should have just said it . . . all of these shoulds.  No wonder I find that I am too hard on myself.

Surely, life is not entirely left to coincidence and fate.  I have a part in this passion play, and it is my role to navigate past the shoulds that present themselves to me as I shift should into will.  I remember when I was going through a tough time of either-or in my life — one of those definitive crossroad moments — and my brother was encouraging me to shift into a new change.  I was balking and reciting the many excuses as to why I could not do anything to create something more positive in my life.  I remember my brother’s question to me: “Can’t?  Or won’t?”

Can’t?  Or won’t?  Should?  Or will?  The lyrics from an Indigo Girls song have been running through my mind as I have been writing this morning:

“There’s more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.”

The closer I am to fine, the more likely I am to be more flexible.  More fluid.  More willing to be in flow-mode.  There truly is more than one answer to the many questions that present.  And a crooked line is sometimes to be expected.

gratitude-rainbowspiral1Life has its many many blessings that are all around me.  When I experience an active awareness of this, I feel my spirit bumping some of the ever-present shoulds into a different position, allowing me to enter that magical bubble of grace, easing me into an easier space.

This is one of life’s anointed experiences that is rarely stored in the memory for later recall during some of the more challenging times.  And like the Biblical manna, this sort of moment is supplied miraculously on a daily basis.  It is up to me to harvest it, to enjoy it, and to not try to store it or hoard it.  It is a single moment to be released into and from my life.  One at a time, preferably without an army of shoulds marching at the head of the procession.

In life, we are blessed when we can experience true sweetness.  At the risk of sounding pessimistic, this can be quite rare.  How many times will I try to not only acknowledge but to return this sweetness?  Over and over.  Like Thomas Edison and his 10,000 tries to invent the light bulb, I will.  toaster oven

 

 

 

 

 

Look Up

/ Kennedy Farr / 5 Comments

This is an awesome video.  It reminds all of us to Look Up.  To see that which is all around us.  In plain sight.  I have watched this video several times, and I continue to marvel at the bare simplicity of the message.  Look up.  Look around.  Look at the people around me.  Be mindful.  Cultivate mindfulness.  Pay attention.  Look for the signs that guide and bless.

These amazing electronic devices are spectacularly connective.  They allow for instant communication that creates bonds that help me to hold near to those who are dear in my life.  They grow my relationships through the instant exchange of shared laughter and goofy voice mails and funny emails and inspiring posts.  They allow me to be available and to express myself in immediate ways that would not have been possible otherwise.  They allow me to be impulsive, and they allow me to edit and to draft and to pause before sending.  They are a blessing.

And these devices “of delusion” can be an isolating master that dominates without any awareness or permission on my part. “I have 422 friends.  Yes, I am lonely. . .”  As this video illustrates, they provide a culture of being alone together.  I look at my plugged-in life now and marvel that I did not have a telephone for almost 18 years.  I look back on that time and wonder how.

How?  In a world of high-speed communication, how did I function by sending letters and receiving replies only once a week.  I had to learn how to be very careful with how I worded questions in a letter so that the recipient would not have to fill in any blanks and guess at my meaning — thus possibly adding another two weeks to the communication — one week for my added clarification and another for the end reply.  I lived in a different world and moved to a different rhythm. There were moments at the beginning of this phone-less time in my life when it was incredibly frustrating, but I learned to adapt.  The planet kept spinning.  The moon rose each night.  The horses wanted to be fed.  I had to learn patience.  And how to mentally set aside anticipated outcomes.  It took a lot of discipline to wait.

As a result of this waiting, I sometimes had to mentally transfer my wonder or my worry or my curiosity to the wonders around me.  I had to learn how to see what was in the moment there before me and not what might be somewhere out in the ether.  I would like to say that I became a Master at Waiting — that I grew a strong sense of discipline — but there were times when this wasn’t true.

Then . . . this past weekend . . . I lost my cell phone.  This was a first, and I wasn’t happy about it.  Ultimately, the ripple effect of this event is too convoluted, fantastic, and detailed to convey in word — as there were many events that linked one to the other in magical ways.  But the overall experience commanded me to Look Up.  To look back to that time when I did not have instant communication.  To pay attention to the signs guiding and leading me. To be willing to extend my self into new territories of belief and appreciation.  To have the opportunity to Just Believe and celebrate. toaster oven

But when my phone disappeared, it became quite the wide journey between the discovery of lost and and the magic of found.  And when it was found, I discovered many things about my self and about other and about my universe that I now value in significant ways that transcend ordinary awareness.  I am definitely looking up.  Whoa.  Am I ever.

All of this to say . . . I do very much like being connected.  I value the ease and the opportunity to be available. But I want to be present when being present counts.  To cultivate mindfulness and be ready for those unanticipated moments of being blessed.

Look up.  It is sometimes very difficult to be mindful of being mindful.  Meta-mindfulness.  Yowza.  It can be quite the trick.  When I am mindful, life has a different feel to it.  Being mindful allows for flow.  Not paying attention breaks up the flow; still, there are lessons to be learned when not in flow . . . lessons that re-direct me to a renewed state of mindfulness . . . of Look Up.

 

 

A Mighty Wilderness

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

We wake up in the morning.  We breathe and love and laugh and cry and live and eat.  Do jumping jacks and shower.  We take out the trash.  We slip a love note into our loved one’s lunch bag.  We bustle about and head to work.  We give money to the person with the sign at the freeway entrance.  We whip out our credit card and air lift a wriggling worm across the vastness of a warming sidewalk into a flower bed after a heavy rain.  (Okay, that was a true confession — I rescue worms!)  We tell the barista that we like her earrings while waiting for our coffee.  We call our brother to tell him that yes, starting his new business in this economy is a good idea.  We hug a student who is struggling with finances.  We laugh with a colleague over coffee.  Life is good.

We move beyond the familiar and engage on some small level that tells us that we are connecting.  How we do this is coincidental and mysterious.  It is all so seemingly random — at least it is for me.   I rarely set out each morning with the knowledge that I am going to change the world.  But I do.  We all do.  With small baby steps, we reach across the unknown and discover someone else’s uniqueness in this mighty wilderness.

By joining hands in the darkness, we all make the path a bit easier to navigate.  We can warn each other about a deep dip in the trail, an exposed tree root that would send us flying off the path, an abrupt switchback.  We can hold low branches aside until the other passes and we can call out a nettles warning.  We, together, can sing a marching song from our childhood and shine our lights and guide each other into a more friendly part of the forest.

This sometimes requires me stepping outside my comfort zone.  I can’t count the times I have thought, I can’t believe that I just did that.  It’s surprising , actually.  Intuitive offers of help, advice, money, food.  Sometimes unwanted and misunderstood?  Yes.  But that is how the moments play out. I try to remind myself that we will all find our way in the darkness if we just take the risk of being misunderstood.  Of  joining hands in this mighty wilderness.

 

why gratitude?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

gratitude. chopraGratitude.  Georg Simmel calls it “the moral memory of mankind.”  Gratitude feels good.  It frees us from moments that try to put us in a muddle.  It expresses joy from the inside out.  It pays attention.  It is a honeybee of movement and purpose and sweetness.  It feeds hope.  It places a necklace of sweet violets around our hearts.  It is fun.  It is the stuffing inside our childhood teddy bear.  It kicks butt on gloom and doom.  It elevates our awareness of happiness.  It deals our cosmic poker hand aces.  It laughs at the absurd and opens itself to the unlikely.  It is a lot of things that just plain feel good.  It is inspiring and edifying.  How great it is to feel gratitude.

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“Why gratitude?”  Indeed.  What a great question.  The words of wisdom in this image are so beautiful.  Universe.  Mindfulness.  Everyday.  Precious Jewel.  Joy.  Recognize.  Thankful.  Harvest.  Alive.  Moments.  Hearts.  Conscious.  Treasure.

Just reading these words makes me feel good.  And feeling these words is a true gift.  Makes me want to get up and dance. Pet the dog.  Appreciate the clean, running water from the tap.  Feel the love of my family. Enjoy a good belly laugh to the point of snorting.  So many things.  For all of them, I feel gratitude.

Please, take a few moments to enjoy this brief and very beautiful and inspiring and touching and elevating piece on gratitude below.  I try to watch it at least once a week.  Moreso if my mojo seems to have stopped working unexpectedly.  It is my hope that you have a very beautiful day filled with appreciation and gratitude.

Moving Art: Gratitude

Why gratitude?    “. . . it could be beautiful.”  

universe     mindfulness     everyday     precious jewel     joy     recognize     thankful     harvest     alive     moments     hearts     conscious     treasure     happy     healthy     blessed

Skipping in Place

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

I was thinking last night about how stuck we feel when we realize we are in a negative place.  Stuck like a needle in a skip on vinyl.  

We feel that there is no hope for forward movement, and we can hear the inevitability that it is we who are going to have to make the skip stop. Sometimes we hope that the scratch is sufficiently insignificant such that we can wait out the monotony . . . when all we need do is pick up the needle and move it to the next track.  I sometimes “kick myself” after realizing that I have invested time into something that is, in all actuality, cancelling out forward movement and quality of  life.  But maybe this is part of life’s learning, and I should be easier on myself.  

Regret is an emotion wasted.  It is the groove that is holding the skip in place.  By being present and freeing ourselves from being stuck, we are renewed with the energy that fuels our happiness in the present and our dreams for the future.  By taking action and removing that needle, we allow self-forgiveness for those What was I thinking? moments.  Time to move on.  Time to put on a new album and move to a new rhythm.unstuck-2

Life is brimming with gifts and treasures and happiness.  The discovery of this abundance is the best part of life for me, like opening a box that is filled with exactly my heart’s desire.  Perhaps bumping up against those not-so-positve places is not the villain after all . . . knowing that I have the strength and the courage to get up from my spot of stagnant acceptance, pick up the needle, place it on its holder, remove the album, pick a new album, reset the needle.  And enjoy.  Sigh.  It wasn’t that hard, truly.  Time to move on to a better-feeling place and dance to some new music.

Who knew that being brave could be so liberating?  Certainly not a unique concept for those who regularly beard the lion in the den before breakfast . . . but definitely something to consider when feeling stuck in a groove that shows no promise of movement.  Move the needle or change the vinyl.  Take a chance.  You never know what wonderful thing might happen.

Try Something New: Enforced Restfulness

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

My Try Something New today: contentment in enforced restfulness.

If you light a lamp quote

The story of my past few days has allowed for some enforced restfulness.  What I have learned is that as much as I say I want a peaceful and quiet and tranquil life in the midst of my self-made chaos . . . there is another part of me that craves the hub-bub, the drama, the go-go-go, the challenges at work, the randomness of just wandering with no projected outcomes, the movement that gives me inspiration to create and to laugh and to love.

This enforced restfulness has given me time to just be with me.  And it has been nice.  And it has also been not so nice.  The nice parts have given me an opportunity to observe and take note of what runs through my mind when I am not thinking of what I am going to do next.  I am just being in the Now.  Just chilling and petting the cat and figuring out inversions on the  piano and stir-frying onions and garlic with asparagus and having long conversations on the phone with my sisters . . . this sort of thing.  I have been focusing on the simple and important things that get nudged aside or that get squeezed into the day.

The thing that has been rather bittersweet has been realizing truly how little time I create for being with me.  I find that I often am so busy projecting my light outward, I don’t replenish the source of this light within.  Again, not necessarily a bad thing . . . but  the words of my mum come to mind: Moderation in everything.  I think I have been putting too much time into outward and not into inward.

In high school art class, I was given a calligraphy assignment.  I was to find a proverb or quote and write it using the calligraphy style of my choice.  Wanting it to be perfect and vintage-y, I procrastinated and I remember spending more time ultimately looking for a short quote that would satisfy the assignment than I did practicing my lettering.   The quote was short, but compelling.  I knew it had a lot to say, even though I wasn’t quite certain what it exactly meant at the time.  It reads: “Contentment is the absence of selfish ambition.”  Quite the dose of profundity in only seven words.  No wonder it befuddled my teen-aged mind.  It still sort of does.

What this enforced restfulness has done is it has slowed me to a place of seeking contentment.  By replenishing, I have refilled the lamp, trimmed the wick, and polished up the chimney.  How is my little light going to shine if I don’t take the time to fill the lamp?

I also know that this time to myself has created deep appreciation for all of those people who shine their light my way — for their “absence of selfish ambition” — for sharing who they are with me so selflessly.

Am I committed to take more time to just think and to be and to not be doing all of the time?  Yes. Am I ready to resume my days at the speed of light?  Yes.   But this has been good.  Good for realizing that I am paying attention and wanting a life with a balance of contentment that generates and receives light and that puts a smile back into my soul and that not just enforces restfulness but embraces it as well.

 

Intentional Acts of Kindness

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

No-Act-of-KindnessI l-o-v-e this!

Kindness.  None of it is ever wasted.  It all contributes to something that is so much greater than the sum of its whole.  So much greater than who we are.  We have every little opportunity to bestow a kindness.  Certain circumstances sometimes rob us of an incentive to do so.  When this happens, if I power past what feels like an obstacle — an I’m-not-feeling-this-in-the-least, it always feels very powerful.  Like I nudged a benevolent particle in the Universe.

Being kind to people we love is easy.  Being kind to those who irritate us or who create chaos in our lives is more challenging.  When I make a conscious choice to act in favor of kindness, I am doing this for the Universe.  For my daughters to have access to a kinder world.  For my sisters, my brother, my friends.  A conscious choice sets the ripples into broader universes.  How cool is all this?

Random acts of kindness are lovely beyond amazing . . . but what about that intentional act of kindness when we aren’t reallykindness golden and fawn feeling it?  This has immense power and reward within the doing.  This is not to advocate for supporting negativity from a damaging relationship. Rather it is for those times when our soul whispers to us to let go of the battle in favor of some inner peace.

I don’t use the word edifying very often, but this is what kindness is.  Merriam Webster defines the verb edify as a way to teach in such a way that someone’s mind or character is improved.  What is one thing you can do today to help someone learn in such an amazing way that their mind or character is improved?  I don’t know about you, but this really humbles me.  What a responsibility it is to go forth into the world every day, knowing that we have the power to improve someone else’s “mind or character.”  


kindness.smile quoteKindness.  When I used to  think of this word, I would think of synonyms such as gentleness, humility, quietude, peacefulness . . . but I am rearranging my perception of it.  It is roars like a daisy and is powerful beyond measure with the amazing ability to transform and to improve another’s character.  Wow!  This inspires me to want to do my utmost to make a difference as I go into the day and act in terms of kindness.