I look at my to do list and wonder, where do I start? Despite planning my week on Sunday evening, everything staring back at me from my Trello “My Week” board (an online project management site) feels like a lot. No, not a lot, like way too much. Like no freaking way is that going to happen.
Joy Tip Wednesday - Hope
“We can’t live without hope, ” says Gallup Senior Scientist Shane J. Lopez. As I prepared to lead many workshops over the last week and reflected on this week’s political transition, hope has been on my mind. That’s when I stumbled upon Shane Lopez’s research. According to his research, hope is both essential to our mental well being and contagious. As I watched students, friends, and strangers struggle with hope in this transitional time, I wondered, if hope is so essential how do we lose it?
Joy Tip Wednesday: A Solstice Ritual
Several weeks ago while talking with one of my healers she mentioned the year of 9. A nine year cycle ending in 2016, completing the personal development work we have been doing over the last nine years. It came up in conversation with her as I was reflecting on how challenging the year has been for myself and others. She told me that this year has been tough because it is a year of completion. A year where we burn off all the emotional energy of wounds ready to heal. Where we face the fears we are asked to face.
Joy Tip Wednesday: Change
What if I told you that purposeful change could be the best thing that ever happened to you?
We often meet change with resistance. Trying to keep it at bay. Fearing how it will disrupt our comfort now. I asked students in my yoga classes this week with a show of hands how many people like change. 1% of students in each class raised their hands. I wonder, what would happen if we met change as the best friend rather than the fearful foe? If we not only embraced change, but invited change to the table of our life?
Joy Tip Wednesday - Reactivity
The single most important investment we can make is to understand ourselves. For it is through understanding myself more that I understand others. Through loving myself more deeply I love others more dearly. Through granting myself forgiveness I open to forgive others. Through having compassion for my faults I have compassion for the messiness of others.
Joy Tip Wednesday - Include Goodness
Could you see yourself like your dog sees you? This is a question Tara Brach poses to a client in her book Radical Acceptance. The understanding that our pets, always see the goodness inside of us, even if we forget. It’s a profound question when you are battling judgement of yourself. As I was listening to the audio book while driving earlier this week I thought perhaps the most appropriate question now is not about me. But those that are on a different side of the aisle from me in this post-election era. I wondered, can I see them as their dog sees them? As their child sees them? As their beloved partner sees them? Can I see the goodness past all the filters that fight to get in the way? The ego that tries to block it out. Mine, theirs...both?
Joy Tip Wednesday - Bridging the Divide
I’m writing this in silence this morning. It only feels appropriate after the collective news in the United States and the level of division in this country. A large segment of the country, myself included, is grieving today. Many of us are asking where do we go from here. As I struggle with these questions personally, it feels only appropriate to explore those questions with all of you.
Joy Tip Wednesday: Having It All
Joy Tip Wednesday - Celebrate
Why do we shoo away our blessings the minute they show up at our doorstep?
What’s interesting is my initial impulse to hide my blessings. To shoo them away in a sense. To downplay them. It’s that protection mechanism inside of me that is scared to lose what I’ve received. That is worried I’ll make others feel bad if I celebrate too much because of what they don’t have. This is a sure way to suck the joy out of everything that is right in service of everything that is wrong.
Joy Tip Wednesday - Out of the Shadows
“That’s rape Marci…” I’m silently sitting on the other line of the phone with one of my closest friends. I get ready to respond and then the weight of what he’s revealed to me hits me. Why did I almost try to explain this moment away as simply a misunderstanding? Why was I so uncomfortable with the weight of the reality? Instead of trying to brush things off, I say “You’re right. For some reason in my mind, because I wasn’t dead or brutally beaten, I told myself it was just a misunderstanding and moved on.”