Of all the traps and pitfalls in life, self-disesteem is the deadliest, and the hardest to overcome, for it is a pit designed and dug by our own hands, summed up in the phrase, “It’s no use – I can’t do it.”
— Maxwell Maltz
Lately, my friends have been facing some major challenges. One of my friends is struggling with a breakup – which she initiated. She’s now considering getting back together with the guy because she’s lonely – and her biological clock is ticking.
Another friend has both of her grown sons living with her. The older one just lost his job – AGAIN(!!!) – and the younger hasn’t worked in many, many months. She’s heading towards retirement age but still has a house full of kids that she’s supporting.
Both of these people are Continue reading » Get Out of That Pit
How are those resolutions going? Do you, like me, need a fresh start, a new beginning in order to persist in reaching your goals?
Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination.
— Andre Gide
Monday Morning
It’s Monday morning and I’m dressed, ready to go out for my walk – yet here I am, writing this post instead. Lately it’s been a challenge to get myself out for my morning walk. And an even tougher task to eat in ways that cause me to shed pounds.
Not too long ago I was cruising along doing both with ease. No such luck now. I can come up with every excuse in the book for not going out first thing in the morning. And my sweet-tooth plagues me.
This has GOT to turn around. Now would be a good time. I need a fresh start at this losing weight and getting fit stuff. I’m barely holding my own here. And it’s waaaaaay too soon to be in maintenance mode.
Could writing this post serve as Continue reading » Begin Again
- Sometimes our hearts get tangled
- And our souls a little off-kilter
- Friends and family can set us right
- And help guide us back to the light.
— Sera Christann
If you’ve been reading here lately, you probably know that my nuclear family (and nuclear is exactly the right term) has been facing a bit of a crisis. By nuclear I mean me, my siblings and my father. There’s nothing quite like a dance with dementia to get the juices flowing.
As you may recall, the Friday before Christmas Dad chose to drive the wrong way down a divided highway. This resulted in a short hospital stay, a tentative diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and a statement by the medical personnel involved that it was no longer safe for Dad to live alone. The advantage/disadvantage of Alzheimer’s is that Dad doesn’t Continue reading » Bouncing Back Through Family and Friends
You have to choose where you look, and in making that choice you eliminate entire worlds.
— Barbara Bloom
I don’t know about you but I find this photo intriguing. Broken, trampled and bruised, this tattered bloom was captured by a very insightful photographer, Todd Baker, who tells us he “Nearly stumbled over this poor, delicate beauty on my way to work one cold November morning. Dropped right in the middle of the parking lot, it looked to have been given quite a squish by at least a few busy feet. [Feet that were] too busy to stop, too busy to care, too busy to know what they missed.”
In my home is a small, red-clay pot that I display prominently because its beauty pleases me. My husband’s brother, a sculptor and artist by trade, lovingly crafted the small vase early in his career in homage to American Indian artistry. But somewhere, sometime, in its travels among households, the pottery was dropped and a large, V-shaped chunk broke off, breeching the narrow opening, leaving a gaping hole.
Whenever my brother-in-law visits, he offers to fix it. I am sad that the brokenness displeases him – it offends his creative intent, it’s NOT as he planned.
But I always nix the fix. I like it the way it is, broken and beautiful. For you see, he hid a secret inside the vase – he enameled the inside surfaces a stunning blue-sky azure that can only be seen with the side caved in.
Beautiful Imperfections Grace Our Lives
It occurs to me that we move so quickly through our lives that we miss the ordinary but ephemeral gifts that bless our busy lives – lives that often feel broken because things are NOT going as we planned.
Continue reading » Broken but Beautiful
If you want to take your mission in life to the next level, if you’re stuck and you don’t know how to rise, don’t look outside yourself. Look inside. Don’t let your fears keep you mired in the crowd. Abolish your fears and raise your commitment level to the point of no return, and I guarantee you that the Champion Within will burst forth to propel you toward victory.
— Bruce Jenner
This week we’ve munched and crunched a few of our FEARs with four flexible solutions that will work for anyone who’s willing to tolerate a little silliness along the way. From research touting an unexpected Botox benefit – it’s easier to be happy when you can’t frown – to reliving a trip to the dentist in living color, we’ve jittered among our funky fears and found funny fixes for getting unstuck and for getting to fear-less.
In Monday’s post I linked to research that confirms that a smile can actually make you feel better. And because I don’t think pasting on a forced smile will suffice, I suggested creating your very own “Grins List”…
Did you do it? If not, what are you waiting for? Go for the giggles now so you can produce a genuine smile when you need to fake it ’til you make it. And if you need more reasons to crack a smile besides it’ll make you feel better, check out Top 10 Reasons to Smile And smile, smile, smile!
Then on Tuesday PattiAnn admitted that she has a “picture problem”. Please don’t ask her to visualize desirable futures – she just can’t see them. Or at least, she couldn’t until she learned about a technique called “virtualization” and gave it a try. But did she “try” it on a desirable future??? Oh no. She intrepidly virtualized a couple of her fears. So, in addition to threatening to vividly virtualize her fear of flying for us, she regaled us with a 5-Senses visit to the dentist in Getting to Fear-Less.
Read it and then rescue your runaway hormones by “imagineering” a happy time in your life – pretend you’re in a Star Trek-like Holodeck and, using the 5-Senses virtualization technique, create some good happy-times “memories”. In other words, add more to your Grins-List but this time, see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and feel it. It’ll make you happy-more and fear-less. And if you’re having a hard time with this virtualizing technique, take a look at one woman’s Wednesday afternoon… or savor a clever bunch of kids’ cool apple poems.
Continue reading » Scared Silly and Back
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