gratitude

Step Forward – Fall Back?

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ Leave a comment

I had a fairly significant business “event” occur last week. Some might call it a failure. A loss.

This “event” was disappointing, upsetting.

But beyond the momentary punch-to-the gut of it, I knew as this event happened that as a result, there were two paths I could go down as a result.

I could see it as a “setback“ and feel like a piece of shit. I could feel like a failure, slide into depression. Use it as evidence to feed the very familiar monster inside that is always looking for proof of my being a Loser incapable of keeping good things and making use of good opportunities.

Or I could use it as a stepping stone. I could take a beat to be upset, then take what lessons and information I needed to take out of it and keep it moving.

I allowed myself about a half hour to feel all the things I felt, and when I could, got very clear and honest with myself about my part in the equation.

I reflected. And then I regrouped. And then, as soon as I could, I took a positive action in the direction of my Big Picture.

Because I am in charge of my choices. Not the “powers that be.” They can make their choices. Those choices may affect me.

But I get to choose what happens next.

In this case, I rolled up my sleeves and made a new plan. Reached out to supports for ideas (and also to “normalize” the news – keep it out of a space of shame.)

I soon had a clear plan of action. And some pats on the shoulder that let me know I was not alone.

No means “not now,” “not yet” or “not me.” That’s all. This or something better.

I don’t believe in things setting me back. Things happen, and I can either allow them to be a reason I fall back, or a reason I step forward.

I know what I am choosing today. How about you?

#TheGetMyWorkOutThereChallemge #DayTwentyOne #resilience #reaction #empowerment

Happy New Year!

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

Last night, as I watched the amazing fireworks set off over the ocean in Panama City, I reflected back on one of the many gifts of 2018. I have begun to accept and value my self in a deeper way than ever before. This has been an elusive thing in my life.

It has taken a tremendous amount of courage, support and healing. Unraveling layer upon layer of wounding and false beliefs. Allowing myself to take the risk to believe new beliefs about my self.

Oddly, what may have seemed “selfish” to me before – this love of self – has actually been the opposite. It has begun to help me to be a better person in the world. I have so much more accessible to give to the world. Where there was fear and darkness, now I also find light and great courage. I intend to use it in service and in creation.

Wherever you are, however you believe, may your new year be filled with the power of self-love. Today, I borrow the words of a master of love.

PRAYER FOR SELF-LOVE

By Don Miguel Ruiz, taken from his book “The Mastery of Love”

Today, Creator of the Universe, we ask that you help us to accept ourselves just the way we are, without judgment. Help us to accept our mind the way it is, with all our emotions, our hopes and dreams, our personality, our unique way of being. Help us to accept our body just the way it is, with all its beauty and perfection. Let the love we have for ourselves be so strong that we never again reject ourselves or sabotage our happiness, freedom, and love.

From now on, let every action, every reaction, every thought, every emotion, be based on love. Help us, Creator, to increase our self-love until the entire dream of our life is transformed, from fear and drama to love and joy. Let the power of our self-love be strong enough to break all the lies we were programmed to believe – all the lies that tell us we are not good enough, or strong enough, or intelligent enough, that we cannot make it. Let the power of our self-love be so strong that we no longer need to live our life according to other people’s opinions. Let us trust ourselves completely to make the choices we must make. With our self-love, we are no longer afraid to face any responsibility in our life or face any problems and resolve them as they arise. Whatever we want to accomplish, let it be done with the power of our self-love.

Starting today, help us to love ourselves so much that we never set up any circumstances that go against us. We can live our life being ourselves and not pretending to be someone else just to be accepted by other people. We no longer need other people to accept us or tell us how good we are because we know what we are. With the power of our self-love, let us enjoy what we see every time we look in the mirror. Let there be a big smile on our face that enhances our inner and outer beauty. Help us to feel such intense self-love that we always enjoy our own presence.

Let us love ourselves without judgment, because when we judge, we carry blame and guilt, we have the need for punishment, and we lose the perspective of our love. Strengthen our will to forgive ourselves in this moment. Clean our minds of emotional poison and self-judgments so we can live in complete peace and love.

Let our self-love be the power that changes the dream of our life. With this new power in our hearts, the power of self-love, let us transform every relationship we have, beginning with the relationship we have with ourselves. Help us to be free of any conflict with others. Let us be happy to share our time with our loved ones and to forgive them for any injustice we feel in our mind. Help us to love ourselves so much that we forgive anyone who has ever hurt us in our life.

Give us the courage to love our family and friends unconditionally, and to change our relationships in the most positive way. Help us to create new channels of communication in our relationships so there is no war of control, there is no winner or loser. Together let us work as a team for love, for joy, for harmony.

Let our relationships with our family and friends be based on respect and joy so we no longer have the need to tell them how to think or how to be. Let our romantic relationship be the most wonderful relationship; let us feel joy every time we share ourselves with our partner. Help us to accept others just the way they are, without judgment, because when we reject them, we reject ourselves. When we reject ourselves, we reject you.

Today is a new beginning. Help us to start our life over beginning today with the power of self-love. Help us to enjoy our life, to enjoy our relationships, to explore life, to take risks, to be alive, and to no longer live in fear of love. Let us open our heart to the love that is our birthright. Help us to be come Masters of Gratitude, Generosity, and Love so that we can enjoy all of your creations forever and ever.

Amen.

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On the Road Again

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My husband and I are driving a Penske truck filled with furniture from our last apartment In the Bronx, NY to Texas. We’ve made this trip before.

Last time, we drove the opposite way with the same furniture from my parents’ home just after we were married 8 years ago, just after my Dad died, a year after my brother died and two years after my mother did.

I was so grateful for that furniture at the time. Newly married, making a home with someone for the first time, I was thrilled to have really nice things to bring to our shared space, a new apartment we’d chosen together.

Having lived in a tiny studio apartment in the West Village of NYC for 18 years prior to this big change, I had no furniture to speak of. My husband had some nice things to bring from his place, but not enough. We were stretching our budgets to get our apartment. New furniture was not in the plan. So my parents was a blessing.

It was amazing how perfectly the furniture all worked together. We chose rich colors for the walls off of the colors in the rugs, and somehow, it all had an eclectic warmth that just felt right. So “us,” somehow. The us we were becoming.

For the first years of our marriage, in those years after those huge losses in which I grieved and lived as best I could, that furniture surrounded me and held me and filled the empty gaping hole their deaths left.

I cherished it all. I had my father’s bronzed baby cowboy boots as book ends. A china cabinet held bluebirds, brown ware and silver pieces from my mother’s collections. We ate off of plates and used pans brought up from their kitchen. Put drinks on coasters from their den.

Our bedroom furniture was from my parents first house. The first expensive rug they bought, a now-worn but still lovely Oriental, sat under their gorgeous dark wood dining table and chairs.

But somewhere along year 6, something began to shift in me, and now, 18 months later, after a Konmari wave that washed away my clutter, a new apartment search, offer, and purchase, a renovation, putting an apartment on the market, a sale, a closing, a move, and a settling in, here I am. Day two of a three day journey to take much of that furniture to a new home.

My cousin, who my parents loved, who has a lovely wife and two young kids and a house, is happily taking the furniture off my hands. Whatever he did not take, others in NY needed and wanted.

Tomorrow we reach Austin, where the pieces will be put in their new home.

And I will let go. Of the grieving time. Of the me that has lived these 8 years in the after-shock, doing my best.

I feel such a mix of sadness and relief and excitement. Sadness because I still wish they were here instead of their things. Relief because something is done that I seem to have needed to do. Some job I unconsciously took on will soon be complete. And excitement is for this next part, whatever it will be.

Today I crave space. I want to be surrounded by things that resonate the me I am today. Our new home in no way resembles our last. And I love it with its new colors and furniture, and kickass river views.

I kept one chair out of it all. And reupholstered it. It looks wonderful there, surrounded by our new pieces, our new rugs.

At the end of the first day’s drive, we were treated to a blazing orange sky. Since my mother passed, I am convinced that beautiful sunsets are her way of letting me know she is there, loving me. It was clear that she, my Dad and brother, approve of this trip.

My parents and brother are still with me. But now they fill my heart space. I carry them wherever I go.

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Fast-Forward

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I reach forward through time

Caress my own face

Trace the worn rivulets

Heart-lines that reveal

The worries, the laughter

The life that I have lived

I tuck the silver hair behind my ear

I run my finger down the

Cords and veins on my hand

Touch the wedding ring

My pride, my true love, my joy

I whisper, “Rest now, my friend.

You did it. You survived.

And then you thrived.

And now, you can let go.”

I feel such love for her

The me I came to be

I come back into my present

Filled with love-swell and peace

And deep knowing

Nothing to fear at the end

Nothing to fear

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Tradition

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 7 Comments

I am on an adventure with my nephew.

When I graduated from high school, my Granma took me on a trip to England, Wales and Ireland. It was a generous gift.

She’d traveled extensively in her life, as had her mother, my Great-Grandmother Burns. They’d both lost their husbands early and ended up living quite rich and adventurous lives as widows.

My Gran had taken my two brothers before me as they each graduated. It was a tradition.

So when my brother’s first born graduated from high school, I had the impulse to carry on the tradition.

My Gran was long-since dead, and my Mom – her daughter – had died a few years’ past.

So I decided to do what I knew they’d have loved to do.

I took my niece on a trip to London and Paris in 2016. My sister-in-law came too, which was almost as good as my Mom being there. She is warm and loving, just like my Mom.

It was a wonderful trip. I cherished our time together and felt my parents’ presence (my father and other brother had recently died as well) with us.

And now here I am, my nephew and I on an adventure. And this time, we are all here together: my husband, my nephew, my brother, my sister-in-law and my niece.

My nephew chose Norway and Sweden to explore. None of us had ever thought of visiting either, but of course we were all game!

So here we all are, in Norway.

And it is heavenly.

The beauty of this country is just magnificent.

But of course, it is all really about being together. We feast our eyes on the landscapes. We laugh and laugh. We eat delicious food.

Once again, I sense my parents, and my brother somehow here, happy for us.

Maybe my niece and nephew will someday carry on the tradition and feel my presence there, too.

Just Because

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 2 Comments

We have a tiger rug in our new kitchen.

Just because.

Many might think it, well, idiosyncratic. Or silly.

There are some design reasons it makes sense: he brings the right splash of orange-red that completes the adjacent dining room rug. And yes, it justifies the red knobs on the oven.

But perhaps more important than all of that, and perhaps less “important” and yet crucial, he simply makes us smile and brings us joy.

And so we have a tiger rug in our kitchen.

Just because.

 

Do-Be-Do-Be-Do

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Somewhere along the way, I learned to value efficiency over my own sanity.

I mean, I can multi-task something fierce. Today, my day began at 7 AM and had been straight through from meeting to class to rehearsal to workout to an hour and a half with nothing planned.

I had intended to relax and have a shake and chill until I needed to leave for the next thing, a class that would go until 10 PM. But no, I ended up doing other things, and all at once.

I ended up troubleshooting with an Adobe support person while making a shake with my Nutri-Bullet, and helping a friend in need on the phone through a rough time. My hour and a half quickly dissolved into a remaining ten minutes to get out the door and on to the next thing, and I still hadn’t rested or had my shake.

It was crazy! And thank God, the better part of me knew it. I was not with any one of those fully. I at least had the presence of mind to tell my friend that while I was glad she called and that I could absolutely make time for her, that I couldn’t give her my full attention, and I wanted to.

The truth is, I have to make a concerted effort to stop myself during the day to drink water, go to the restroom, take a breath.

It is hard for me to not see “downtime” as inefficient.

When did I begin to de-value just “being”? Why the frenzy to always fill every possible slot of time with actions and tasks?

It doesn’t really matter. I could blame it one the world today. This digital age. That I live in NYC.

All I know is that after several days like that, I will crash. My system will revolt.

I need those pockets of doing nothing. To refill me well. To daydream. To be blank. To breathe.

I practically have to schedule them. They are still not second nature. My second nature is to get into the frenzy.

But, today aside, I am getting better. Awareness is all, right? And action.

Or should I say, inaction!?

How do you get yourself to remember to do nothing?

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word prompt: inefficient

The Long and Winding Road

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 7 Comments

I love to meander. Either literally or figuratively. In my mind, telling a story or on my feet, I find it so gratifying.

Not always so for others. My husband can be driven a bit crazy by my sometimes long and winding way of coming to the point of a story, for example.

I get it. I love straight lines too. There a times I get to the point! Indeed!

Give me a route, I love to follow the way.

But to let that all go: plans, destinations, paths, pre-determined places to end up or problems to solve by this deadline or that…

To simply go where the wind blows me. To follow my nose. To follow clues.

To listen to the guide from within as old as the sea urging me this way or that.

This is how I find the best places. This is how I end up living the most “perfect” days. (Rarely the days I painstakingly plan.)

To sit and let my mind go from association to association, knowing that nothing is crucial but it is all valuable and each morsel may lead to something wonderful.

That is where my creativity comes alive, in the seemingly random twists and turns of consciousness as they dip into the collective unconscious.

Yes, I am a fan of meandering. As long as it is not in the Internet. That is the one place I am best served by staying to a clear intention and boundaries. Meandering there, I usually end up with regret and an emotional hangover.

But a day like today, meandering about Cape Cod. Priceless. Nourishing. Awesome.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: meander

Traveling On

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 2 Comments

I hear you

My constant companions

Some whispering, some insistent

All desperate to be heard

Reaching from behind to steer me

Safely through the world

A world you did not survive

I hear you

I do

But I must find my own way

Must live new mistakes

And leave this world

Having lived new ways of being in it

I hear you

I do

And I say

Thank you

And I say

Goodbye

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: constant