Harnessing the healing power of snark
From my friend, Jill Badonsky, author of The Awe-manac:
“March was originally the first month on the early Roman calendar. Its name honors Mars, the Roman god of war. To honor Mars, it’s the Awe-Manac Month of Unleashing Your Inner Warrior On All Tormenting Thoughts And Unfulfilling Actions Keeping You Captive.”
Right on!
I am coming off of an exceptionally bad pain week (STUPID FIBRO!!), which has apparently leached away all traces of humor from my system. I really hate that.
But I also hate not posting at all for almost a week.
So for today I will direct you toward this very cool blog I just discovered, whose author, Kendra Thornbury,, recently wrote a terrific post all about freedom, which happens to be my Very Dearest Love, right after Telling Funny Stories.
“What is freedom?” she asks.
And I love her answer to this question:
“In this moment, I think of it as an unrestrained expression of my true self regardless of who I’m around and what is going on and complete ownership of the reality I am creating. It’s feeling contentment with what is and realizing that regardless of what is transpiring, I am at choice. It is residing in the BEingness of my true essence, that which is unwaveringly solid in the greater truth. ”
As my coaching school instructors would say, “I’ll have some of that!”
“I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out or, if the purpose was too strong, perhaps grow distorted like an oak whose trunk has been encircled with an iron band…So I began to have an idea of my life, not as a slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purpose, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know.”
-Marion Milner
We cannot have self-trust if our mind is such a bad neighborhood that we’re afraid to go into it.
–Jennifer Louden
Suffering and gratitude-they can’t really be BFF’s.
–Lynne Morrell
“Perhaps God is waiting to be found in the things we try to avoid.”
-Danielle LaPorte
Go here to read the rest of her post: “where to find God: down, not up”
Image courtesy of Free Foto.
Recently I was introduced to a great new site called White Hot Truth: because self-realization rocks.
I wanted to share something Danielle posted today-a portion of a poem by Rumi-because it reminded me that I can relax, that who I am and what I do is enough. This is from a poem entitled “Forget your life. Say God is Great…”
You can read the entire poem at her site, but I wanted to post the part that really stood out to me-the second to last stanza.
“If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you’re causing terrible damage.
If you’ve opened your loving to God’s love
you’re helping people you don’t know and have never seen.”
– Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks
A Course In Miracles says, “The Holy Spirit responds fully to your slightest invitation.”
Choose to be open. Offer my willingness. That is enough.
I can do that.
The real work of this life is not what we do every day from nine to five. The real work is to disidentify from self-images that were formed lifetimes ago, and from which we still construct our daily lives. The real work is to allow ourselves to be who we already are, and to have what we already have. The real work is to be passionate, be holy, be wild, be irreverent, to laugh and cry until you awaken the sleeping spirits, until the ground of your being cleaves and the universe comes flooding in….our work is to discover, and then inhabit, our own lives.
-Geneen Roth, Appetites: On The Search For True Nourishment
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“You don’t have to get on the scale today. We can use the weight we got the last time you were here.”
That is my kind of Christmas gift.
This weekend my husband and I had dinner with a friend of ours who has just returned to the States after working for a year in Israel.
We asked him what it was like and he said it was hard, that Israel is a tough culture. When we asked him to tell us more he looked thoughtful for a few moments and then replied that his experience could be summed up in this way:
“Israel: Service not included.”
Image courtesy of Free Foto.
I prefer the version of this poem as adapted by Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book, Simple Abundance.
Pray that your journey be long,
full of many summer mornings
when with much pleasure and joy
you anchor in harbors never seen before;
Browse through Phoenician markets,
to purchase exquisite treasures-
mother-of-pearl and coral, ebony and amber
and sensual perfumes of all kinds-
as much as you desire.
Visit many Egyptian cities, content
to sit at the feet of sages, eager
and open to receive learning.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is your destiny.
But do not hurry the journey at all; be patient.
Better that it lasts for many years-
longer than you can even imagine.
So that finally, when you reach this
sacred isle, you will be a wise woman,
abundantly fulfilled by all you have gained along the way;
no longer expecting Ithaka to make you wealthy,
no longer needing Ithaka to make you rich.
And should you find her poor, Ithaka did not deceive you.
Authentic as you have become, full of wisdom,
beauty and grace, enriched and enlightened by all you have experienced
You will finally understand what all of life’s Ithakas truly mean.
Here’s to the journey of 2009.
