A Few Things I know for Sure

My birthday is coming up. With that, I thought I’d see if I could come up with a few things I know for sure. Here goes.  I’ll add to the list from time to time.  These are in no particular order.

1. Nothing is certain.
2. Don’t believe your first thought. This became clear to me last year when I started running. I’d wake up and think, “I don’t want to run today.” So I would put my running clothes on. As I was drinking my coffee, I’d think, “I don’t want to run today.”  So I would go outside, or to the gym and I’d think, “I’m not going to run very far/long today.” And I would start running. And pretty soon, I was thinking, “I love to run!!!”
3. Absolutely every experience in my life has led me to the place I am today and has been necessary for me to be the woman I am now. And I’m grateful on a daily basis for everything I have and everything I am.
4. I can totally run 13.1 miles. All on the same day. In less than 3 hours.
5. My brain will try to convince me that something is terribly wrong, even when there is no evidence to support it.
6. Love is a superpower.
7. When I set small, achievable goals and take steps in the direction of my goals, the Universe responds and gives me the boost I need.
8. God (or the Universe) speaks to me through other people. And through the radio. Don’t freak out….when I am open to receive divine guidance, it comes. In whatever form is most available to me.
9. Shame has to be one of the most toxic emotions ever and has created more suffering for the self and others than we can even imagine. But we are beginning to figure that out. Awareness is the first step. There are many ways to heal shame and it doesn’t have to be passed down from generation to generation.
10. Love your neighbor as yourself means just that. If I do not love myself, I cannot love another. If I am filled with self-loathing, I will loathe others.
11. We will be forgiven to the same extent we forgive.
12. What people think of me really is none of my business.
13. I am responsible for everything that happens to me. It may not be my “fault,” but I am responsible for it.
14. Sometimes the greatest act of courage is to be true to yourself.
15. There have been times in my life, when I have treated another badly and I very soon found myself in the circumstances of being treated just as I treated others. I think this is karma. I can consciously choose how I want to treat others.
16. Choose kindness and love. Always. Not politics. Love and kindness.
17. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable. See previous item.
18. What I attend to is what grows. If all I read is negativity in the news, I’ll see more negativity in my world. If I focus on positive news, I’ll see more positive things in my world.

Fly me to the moon….

View of the waxing moon from my back deck tonight – even though it’s 2 days until the full moon, it looks amazing. We grilled tuna steaks outdoors tonight (January freakin’ seventh, twenty-twelve, people!)

Once the sky was completely dark, the moon looked like this.  Both photos were taken with my Nikon D40, using a macro lens at f3.5 1/50th. The second photo was cropped.

Any time I am outdoors, I’m looking up. I can’t help it. I want to be up there. I want to spend time up there and see from a bigger perspective. I’ve learned how to do that. I think I’ve always know this life is a dream, an illusion of our own creation. Using that information consciously and intentionally has brought me in contact with some truly amazing people and created some pretty incredible experiences.

I love to go “upstairs.”  That’s what I call the 50,000-foot level (or the 50,000,000-foot level).  I routinely expand my perspective to the largest possible view, where I see the universe as a tiny quark of a quark. This is the level of the superconscious, or the soul, or Source. It is me and I am it. And so are you. When I approach “questions,” “problems” or “issues” from this level, I don’t get stuck in the physical senses of what is going on around me. It helps me figure things out at work and in my personal life. I call to helpers and I surrender myself to the flow of life.

This morning, Tracy and I were doing some vision work upstairs and I got the message very clearly, “It’s time to move beyond the idea of illness and dis-ease. It doesn’t exist. There is much bigger work to be done.”  It was a zing all the way through me. All day, I’ve been riding this knowledge with a sense of wellbeing. I commit to the bigger work whatever it is.

If you want more information about working “upstairs” visit the Visionary Network.

Wishing You Peace in 2012

Our New Year’s Eve was peaceful and full of joy and laughter (and lobster and homemade pasta….and lots and lots of butter).

And pita chips….

And Pains D’Amonde

Did I mention the homemade pasta?

(and LOTS and LOTS of butter).

This is what a butter hangover looks like….

My Word for 2012 – Commit (aka “Yes!”)

Each year for the past few years, a word has come to me as my word for the year. I generally begin thinking about it in November and December, and the word arrives whenever it arrives.  I don’t get too attached to any one word during the reflection phase. When it arrives, it is like a puzzle piece locking into place: it just fits and it makes the picture richer, fuller.

My word this year is “Commit.” I can’t wait to see how it shows itself to me.  I am willing to commit myself fully to this year and to live life in the present moment. The AKA word is “yes” and to me it means that I allow and accept what comes to me. I am reminded of the Jim Carrey movie, “Yes Man,” where the character challenges himself to say ‘yes’ to everything for a year. As a result, he allows and embraces what comes and his life is much richer and fuller as a result.

If you are interested in playing along, it’s quite simple. Consciously and intentionally open yourself up to life and ask that your word come to you. You don’t have to share it with anyone but notice throughout the year how it is expressing itself in your life. Of course, you can share it in the comments section and we will all marvel at the wonder of the myriad of ways it shows up for you through the year.

For past words see here and here.  And here.

3BT – Thanksgiving

1.  Running outside with Tracy because it was light and not raining.

2.  My Denver mom, who has been a big part of my life for the past 30 years. Make your transition peacefully, Mom, whenever it suits you. I love you endlessly and thank you for teaching me mom stuff over the years.

3. I am blessed to have dinner with family today. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday by far and I love sharing it with loved ones. However, the caramel apple pie may not be edible and for that, I apologize in advance.  Then again, it may be just fine.

Food52 Book Launch

Has it really been so long since I posted? Nah…it can’t be, can it?  It would appear so. This is what I’ve been up to….

I have been a fan of Food52.com for a long time; it’s one of my favorite blogs and a go-to-place for new and interesting recipes. So, when they launched their first cookbook and asked for members of the community to help launch it, I couldn’t wait!  Last Saturday was the party. Here are a few pictures….

Books sent by the publisher….

The prep crew, Mary & Marsha…

The first arrivals sampling the wine graciously sent by the publisher…

Chef Carson…

Menu…

Guests eating and knitting…

More partiers…

Dishes consumed, eaters happy…

Me, pooped, but happy. Weeks of thinking about food, testing recipes, planning the menu. Days of cooking and organizing. A couple of hours of hosting and eating. It was great fun.  I’d do it again, but not right away.

Labor Day Harvest

This morning, I moved some gigantic cucumber leaves aside and found 3 lemon cucumbers that were ready (begging, actually) to be harvested.  What could I do but oblige?

I just love this time of year when there is food bounty all around.  The lemon cuke was the only “garden” plant I planted this year, but we’ve had some blueberries, some strawberries, lots of basil and various other herbs.

Happy Labor Day in the US….which has become the traditional end of summer…even though it’s projected to be above 90 most all week (finally).

Reading the “News”

I used to be a ‘news junkie.’ I obsessively read the news each day so I could be on top of what was going on in the world.  I relished each story, following unfolding stories of destruction, corruption, conspiracy.  It gave me juice each morning and I couldn’t tear myself away from it. I would read the paper at the breakfast table, ignoring those around me. A favorite Sunday activity was to go out for breakfast and take the Sunday paper, spreading it out on the table at Old Wives Tales to consume its contents as I did my omelet or waffle or oatmeal.  Having friends and family along for the ride was a bonus…we would exclaim over the state of things, adding commentary and cynicism.

In 1999 I went to Colorado for a week for work related training. During the first day, we were asked to go on a “negativity fast” for the duration of the time we were in the training. They defined this as not watching the news on TV and not reading the newspaper. This was the first time I’d heard that news might be negative!  How could that be? Wasn’t it just “news?”

At the end of that week, I was amazed at how much better I felt. I wasn’t as anxious. I didn’t have this obsessive need to stay informed about various “stories.”  I decided to continue my fast after I got home.

Eventually, I cancelled my newspaper. I began watching Emeril at 5:30 instead of the news. I read daily meditations and reflected in the mornings. I walked. I prayed (well, my version of it, anyway).

While I occasionally felt like I needed a “fix,” I looked at it as just another addiction. I would just wait out the craving, asking to be relieved of the obsession of mind and body. I asked for my attention to be turned to how I could be of use to others.  I treated it the same way I treated my addiction to alcohol….a disease of the mind, body and spirit. I leaned into my higher power, knowing that, as with all addictions, my recovery was not found in my own will, but in giving up control to HP.

Guess what? I still know what’s going on in the world. I just don’t get attached to the “stories,” the narrative. I don’t get sucked into the negativity, conspiracy theories, screams to “be afraid and stay afraid.”

When the World Trade Center towers fell, a woman I was sponsoring called me many times during that first week, in tears. She was completely distraught and glued to the television, watching the images over and over and over.  Finally, I broke in and said, “Turn off the fucking television!”  It stopped her in her tracks and she was speechless.

“How can I do that?” she asked. “All those people died!”

My reply was, “How will you make yourself feel bad enough to bring any of them back?”

We have to break our addiction to negativity in order to make positive changes. Nothing positive comes out of negativity. Only by reaching in and grasping a positive thought are we able to change our vibration. We must resonate in coherence with positivity, then reach out and grasp even more positivity. This is what a gratitude list does for us. We find one thing to be grateful for and our energy shifts. Then we find another thing to be grateful for and we shift some more. And so on and so on.

Really. Give it a try. Thirty days of gratitude.

Let me know how it goes. You can write your gratitude lists in the comments section if you like.

All is well. Life is good.

Choosing a New Narrative

I think we need a new narrative about the world around us.

This post has been rolling around in my head for a couple of days now. I posted a comment on Facebook yesterday positing what might happen if we would focus on the positive rather than the negative.

About 12-15 years ago, I got sick of my “story.” I’d been telling it for years and reveling in the drama, victimhood and depression it created.  It occurred to me that people (meaning me) got addicted to their brain chemistry. As I began looking deeper into my depression and my “feelings,” I realized that I created those feelings by the memories I called up, by the way I narrated what had happened and what was going on in my life.  I was choosing a narrative that created feelings of depression and victimhood.

I made a decision to let go of the story. Little by little, when the old tapes would start to roll, I’d choose a different thought. It was tortuous at first, because the old feelings were comforting, familiar. I got a certain amount of attention (at least from myself). I was justified in keeping myself medicated, numb to the world around me.

However, it was empowering to change my narrative. I began reframing my life in positive terms. I began looking at people and events as needed teachers, treasures that led me to a richer, deeper understanding of who I truly am and my purpose on this plane of existence.

Yesterday, I read an article on NPR, entitled “And Now, Some Good News About the Economy.” I thought it was heartening that there is some positive news being reported.  I mistakenly read a couple of the comments on the article….they were cynical and negative – as are most of the comments posted on news stories. I read positive news; I skip over the negative news, at least as much as I’m able to. I reframe when I can; for example, when the news screams that unemployment is 9%, I scream louder, “Woo-hoo!! Employment is over 90%!!”

Today, my friend Dorothy, of The Happiness Company, posted on Facebook that, “This happiness research is FASCINATING! Did you know that everything around you appears differently when you’re feeling your happy self inside?” Another friend used to quote someone (Tagore?), “What we see depends on what we thought before we looked.” Put another way, “Believing is seeing.”

I do know that when I am feeling sad, anxious, depressed, everything looks dark and scary.  When I’m feeling happy and upbeat, the world and it’s occupants look beautiful, alive and vital. I think the same thing would work for everyone. In fact, give it a try. I’ll wait. Think of something that gives you absolute joy….a puppy, lying on the beach, riding a roller coaster, being with those you love…. whatever it is that raises your vibration.  Now look at your surroundings and what is going on around you. Do you sense the shift?

Honestly, I’m not Pollyanna. I know people are suffering. I know there are wars, famine, etc.  However, if I focus on that, I am incapable of doing anything about it.  If I raise my vibration by choosing a new narrative, by focusing on what is working well, by choosing to focus on positive things, I can change everything.

In AA we are taught about gratitude lists.  If everyone on the planet made a gratitude list each day, 10 items each day, we could turn this around.  Start small. Say, “I’m grateful for the sound of the birds on my morning run.”  ”I am grateful that I can run/walk freely.”  ”I’m grateful for each breath.”  ”I’m grateful for this small black and white dog lying next to me, even though he has the worst farts ever.”

Try it for 30 days.  Choose a new narrative. Reframe what you see. The Buddhists say, “What you turn your attention to grows.” Focus on what’s going right, what’s working and more will go right; more will work well.

As for me, I will post more regularly on my little blog, sharing my narrative. I will go back to it’s true intent, my Gratitude Practices. I will put a higher vibration out into the collective field.

All is well. Life is good.

Lavender Fields

 

 

I was determined to find lavender fields on Thursday with Cody and Ashley. My family will tell you, when I get an idea in mind, I’m pretty immovable.  We drove past signs to lavender fields until finally we made it down a one-lane road outside of Yamhill, OR, to this small field.  I didn’t get any plants to plant in the yard, but tomorrow is the farmers’ market, so I’m sure I’ll find more there than I can possibly imagine.