Posts Tagged: Self-care

Catching a Wave with Your Future Self

in Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Radical Kindness, Winter

Surfer

Every year I usually join in the fun of flipping over the old leaf and welcoming a New Me. Boosted by the ads for health and vitality all around me, I ride the wave of people who want change, who want to see results. This year my modest resolutions weren’t even creative. I changed up my exercise, got myself out for longer walks, went back to strength training, and attended yoga classes that weren’t always labeled “gentle.” Oh yes. And I cut out sugar. Just a few small steps to self-improvement. The part of me that loves challenge is enthusiastic about catching the Big Wave and believes she can ride it to the shore.

Welcoming the Queen of Kindness

in Confusion to Clarity, Radical Kindness, Surrendering

Pond ripple

Lately I’ve been hanging with the Queen of Kindness, one of the personas of the Queen of the Universe. She has gifted me with a sense of clarity, some R&R, a greater sense of peace.

But I happen to know that, under her surface, lies the Red Queen.
Some days I can even believe that she’s in charge of the future and it should go her way.

Off with their heads! She shrieks when the Universe doesn’t cooperate with her plans.

Bless her heart.

She’s so innocent in her attempt to hold things together. She sincerely believes that she has The Big View, that she can predict the future and avoid mistakes. She whips herself into shape, continually. And then, as if that’s not painful enough, it becomes her task to do this for almost everyone around her.

Avoiding the Holiday Tangle: Beware the Season of the Lie

in Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Winter

Tangled up in lights

The stories we tell our kids about Santa are basically innocent; the ones we tell ourselves are far worse because they tend to erupt from the depths when we least expect it.  It’s worth the effort to look at what beliefs tend to drive holiday frenzy. Here are a few that I turned up for myself. You might have your own.

Lie #1: I have to do it alone. Not true. You are not solely responsible for Holiday Elfdom. Look for help. Make a note to yourself to gather a group of friends to share the joy and hassle of baking, creating gifts and coordinating gingerbread construction projects with kids. Look for other places you can use help. Make a few calls. Now. Before it’s too late.

Lie #2: More is better. If we’re not careful, this thought gives the Queen of the Universe free reign from the Turkey Day Feast until she finally passes out from sheer exhaustion sometime in January. Symptoms include over-eating, over-shopping, over-partying, and general overdoing. Read More>>

Surrender, Queen of the Universe

in Confusion to Clarity, Family Stress, Radical Kindness, Surrendering, Winter

Red Queen

I often want things to go my way. Like almost always. After all, I have a bit of life experience to drawn on. I often seem to think that I can predict the future based on this experience. It turns out sometimes I can’t.

Like almost always.

It’s true that my life experience gives me a kind of edge in the wisdom department. I draw on this well daily, hourly. I like to stir that up with a little intuition and a gift for good guesses. Sometimes that’s useful…lots of the time. My inner team calls that the Life Lessons Department.  Its mission is to learn from mistakes and try again.

To lean into the growth that some modicum of maturity has brought and to trust what I have come to know from experience. Read More>>

Resistance is Not Futile

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Identity, Radical Kindness, Surrendering

Yoga on the Clock

I procrastinate. Often. It’s a habit.  When I’m about to do something that requires a stretch, I immediately develop a bad case of Got to Do This! I tell myself that something else, anything else, is more important.  That I simply must react to what’s in front of me, that thing that in the moment seems to be screaming my name.

Then I tell myself that it’ll only take a minute. Just this phone call. That email. If there’s nothing else pressing,  there’s Facebook. Or the kitchen cupboards with the hope that I’ll find something with sugar tucked away behind that “safe” zone of good choices.

But, it turns out, no zone is safe when I’m in the self-distraction mode. There’s ALWAYS some little job to do, some little text to write, some habit of looking outside myself that will give me the instant gratification of Doing Something. Read More>>

Making Moments Into Beads

in Body or Aging, Noticing, Power of Connection, Radical Kindness, Wordlessness

Treasure Beads

For a time in my life I was struck by a Beading Bug. Wherever I traveled I collected these tiny morsels of art, and as I strung them together I reconstituted the events and committed them to memory. I still celebrate places and people from long ago and far away by wearing the jewelry I created back then. Read More>>

Blessing this Face Through the Years

in Body or Aging, Identity, Radical Kindness

Woman looking in mirror

I once owned a mirror that unfolded into a triptych framed in lights.  They called it a make-up mirror. I put it on a small vanity table and called it my altar. First thing every morning I switched it on before leaving for work. It was the only time of day I was still. For two minutes I was not a teacher, mother, wife, daughter. Lists and complications dropped away and I became a canvas, silently ready for the blessing of line and color. Read More>>

Happiness, The Blue Arrow, and This Body

in Approval, Body or Aging, Radical Kindness

Yoga in Blue Rays

I recently heard about signs scattered around New York. Big blue arrows, pointing to one word. Happiness.

Sound familiar? It does to me. Pretty much the way I’ve lived a whole lot of my life in this body. The loop goes something like this: If I get this (name the ailment or condition) taken care of, THEN I’ll have happiness in and with this body.

A whole avalanche of conditions could fill this page. You have your own, but here’s a sample from my mind:

Something is too big (Fat knees, big thighs/hips, belly. Depends on the day).

I’m too sore from exercising. I’m not sore enough.

I could injure myself.

My feet hurt.

My knees are creaky.

I have to pee. Now. Read More>>

The Hour I First Believed

in Approval, Body or Aging, Radical Kindness, Surrendering

Body in Swirls

My body for so long was my secret shame, the taboo subject. I remember lying on the couch, looking at my seven-year-old legs and declaring to myself that they were too fat.

I had become a believer. In that specific moment, all the judgments I’d absorbed from the world around me just popped into my head, a full-grown bundle of beliefs that I’ve carried most of my life.

My religion had simple rules: it was good to be thinner. Read More>>