Random Acts of Kindness

Life requires random acts that 
include courtesy and kindness.

                         Practice RACK today!

Reach out to a stranger.

       Anticipate a way to show appreciation.

Create an adventure to share.

               Keep searching to share Kindness.

Marvel of Moments

"The secret of health is not to mourn the past or worry about the future but to live in the present moment wisely."  — Zen Proverb

  

Human beings have such a difficult time just "being."  We are always doing . . . worrying about yesterday, then shuddering about tomorrow.

The natural world has a lot to teach about existing in the marvel of moments. 

When the brain sends out negative thoughts or someone sets you off about events in the past or future, take time to identify with an animal in nature.  

Make time for a walk. Forget about politics, negativity, and even the weather. 

Go for a natural immersion.

Appreciate the feeling of breezes on the arms, a whiff of eucalyptus or a scent in your environment. 

Listen to birdsong and look up to appreciate the miracle of flight.

Let the shimmer on a hummingbird's wings in sunlight activate a peaceful state of mind.

Observe behaviors that fill each moment. 

Enjoy an opportunity to dance, trot, and breathe in, then out.  

Once in a rhythm, you will stop the mind chatter.  

Let laughter stimulate the stomach muscles to tighten.

The magic of minutes in the present will calm your nerves. Find a friend who will remind you to stay in that focus.

In the details you will discover the Marvel of Moments.

Don't Feed the Worry Bug

All human beings contend with bouts of frustration and negativity. Even those of us with a positive outlook on life, get taunted by the worry bug. Daily we experience about 50,000 thoughts, images and ideas. They slip into our awareness in positive or negative ways. The negative teasers turn into worry bugs that capture our awareness too easily.

Our amygdala and limbic systems focus on threats to protect our survival. During prehistoric times, when stalked by a predator, the systems kicked in. We picked up that danger signal. 

Today our threats involve cognitive thinking: the job, the finances, or what's going on with family and friends. Our heart rates increase just thinking.  When you say, “The older I get, the more I worry,” it’s because of all the practice.

Why do we practice worrying? Psychologists indicate that worry gains its hold on us by ritualized reassurance. All negative scenarios that can possibly occur, race through the mind. We search for ways to survive them, to calm ourselves down. Situations we worry about 94 percent of the time never happen. What results is usually something never worried about. 

Next time the worry bug bites, try new approaches.

Take a break from dancing or jousting with the worry bug. Rather than change the way you think, change your relationship to your thoughts. 

Learn to watch your thoughts, rather than engage with them.

When a negative thought distracts, stop the runaway train. Notice sights, sounds, scents, a taste of air. Engage with a feeling.

Notice what’s going on in the moment. Find words of admiration to discover the rightness of things. 

Create your own metaphor for struggle.  Consider your greatest accomplishment and how you achieved it. Bring in all the senses to recall it in detail.

Avoid always thinking in fix-it mode.

Sing La La La and launch into a favorite melody.

Keep a journal for positive ideas and gratitude comments and write in it just before bed.

Use humor to design a defense against your bug.

Take a look at a video about Wince and the Worry Bug. You'll learn how not to feed him.  
http://www.worrywoos.com/wince.html

Turn worry into Wonder!

Photography's Power

Photography teaches the rustle of moments. 
                     Seconds capture creativity in action.

What else enlivens from the bubbles and papyrus?

The reflection from a dew globe searches the rose next door. Or, is a butterfly primping?

A stretch into the power of the senses shrinks the need for perfection.

Photography does not require a definite subject or something to say.

Rambling clicks attract images.

The process brings a novelty to light or permits a perception into existence. 

In an ordinary day, discovery slants, catapults or somersaults perspective.

The tease of unknown intrigues.

Clouds in a puddle form and circulate wonder.

Spectrum of Emotions and Moods

We travel through a variety of emotions and moods that have the ability to teach us about ourselves and how we relate to others. A message resides in every emotion. Emotions reflect like mirrors and challenge us to discover ways to watch the myriad sides of our personalities. 

Our moods create a spectrum. We can use the bands of light to examine our life process. They will provide insights and information for interaction with others and add texture to our responses.

Martha Nussbaum writes in her book, Upheavals of Thought, “ [There's] no firewall between emotion and intellect.” Often we fear or flee from our moods. We try to rationalize them rather than attempting to swim in the murky waters with them. We repress them with the force of will but discover they will crest again. Our intellect doesn't overcome anger. It's the quickest emotion to arise and needs acknowledgment. If we develop ways to examine and even appreciate it, then it will roll in and dissipate like waves to shore.

Buddhism teaches that emotional states have no hierarchy. Awareness and acceptance ebb and flow through awakening to suffering. All elements of consciousness must do this in order for us to become fully feeling individuals. Avoidance through a variety of means only delays the ability to harmonize within our selves.

If we face our emotions with honesty and develop an inner wisdom filled with ways to accommodate them, their full range will provide a balanced life experience. Rather than avoidance of what's going on - probe your mood. 

What do words like sad and melancholy mean to you? How do they percolate through your body? 

Get into the details and stretch toward the discovery of other ways to describe them beyond their word symbol. What other words can you discover that go along with them?

Create metaphors to discuss frustrated, angry or confused. In what ways can concerned, playful, fierce or attentive reveal themselves? 

If we become stuck in various states of despair. How can we move this experience?

Spend a day following the ebb and flow of your moods. Take notes and allow the freeflow of all emotions. Don't judge or censor them; try not to become reactive. Remain fully present. Experience what they feel like in all parts of the body. 

What can you learn as they guide you? 

Let your notes sit for a day, then return and write about what you discovered.

Magic of Birdsong

I grew up listening to a variety of birdsong. My eyes opened to a blue jay with its raucous chatter. Song sparrows and finches entertained during my tree climbing exploits. When I filled his seed bowl, my pet canary trilled his arias. Twilight blended the coos of mourning doves.

Now, birdsong brightens and energizes my morning runs. Each spring, I teach mockingbirds to sing the first notes of the Oregon Fight Song.

A research project at the University of Surrey studies the impact of birdsong on creativity and on our sense of well-being.

Supported by the National Trust and Surrey Wildlife Trust, the study examines the psychological impact of exposure to birdsong. Does it help us relax? Will it assist our ability to complete tasks and even think creatively? Does birdsong have a restorative effect?

Eleanor Ratcliffe, the researcher, interviews the general public. She wants to understand how people perceive natural sounds and birdsong's effects.

Ratcliffe explores different songs and how individuals relate birdsong to their own memories and sense of place. 

She also will examine whether recorded birdsong played on an iPod will have the same impact as listening to birds in cities and the countryside.





Read more about Ratcliffe's study: http://www.academia.edu/1775367/Exploring_perceptions_of_birdsong_as_a_restorative_stimulus

Do warbles, tweets or a series of trills bring memories or a sense of well-being?  Notice if you return to a specific setting when you recall the sounds.

Discomfort into Discovery

Emotions rise, crest and splash. With a series of waves, we learn ways to wash away dismay. Distress and discomfort disconnect to delight. 

Naivete flows out; in rushes wisdom. Out gushes anger. 

Discernment changes. Out goes despair. Kindness races in. 

With buoyancy, treasures arise from the deep. 

Writing with each wave we learn to embrace the rhythm of emotions. 

They flow in a natural and expansive sea of words. 

If we observe and translate the currents, each emotion leaves us healthier than it found us. We move from discomfort into discovery.  Writing releases the tension.

Write about emotional ebbs and flows.  

How do you ride the waves? 

Develop a metaphor to explain your excursions through emotions.

Drawing Life

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."  - John W. Gardner

"Trying to find enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It's not something you can pick up or put down. 

And you certainly can't grab it." - Bodhidharma

Imagine life as a dove making choices. No regrets. No judgments. Flying on the breezes, a dove lands on the earth with needs for food, shelter at times, and a bonding to add to the future.


Let yourself go with a free flow of lines.

Grab a fountain pan. 

Doodle in colored ink.

Draw up, down and around. 

Breathe in and laugh out

Let an odd turn go or color it. 

Find a different squiggle or circle to pursue.

Breathe in to a new level.

Write Your Top Ten

Practice the details of the above nine.

Show a positive thought.

Which exercise energizes you?

Describe the tastes of healthy eating.

Write into a work situation.

What does strength sound like?

How will you hassle worry into fun?

Show a dance.

Write your Top Ten in details.  What do your items reveal about you?  

Give Winter a Shine

"In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus

Our life paths jumble us with ups and downs, turns to navigate and corners to investigate. Seesaw effects and roller coaster anguish confront us. We must advance toward blind alleys and dark spaces regardless of how we try to avoid them.  

Often jubilation greets us in the darkest moments.

On the good and challenging aspects of a winter day, do you need to play in the shadows of sunshine more than the sunshine itself? Move your imagination into both places.  

Balance the seesaw and get into the thrills of a roller coaster on a winter day.  

From the Inside Out

Birds build nests to hold eggs.  We live in structures to contain our needs for living.

How do we work in our personal lives from the inside out?  

Our life cycles take us up and down. The high cycles energize but we learn more from our low cycles. By honoring the low and paying attention to what they have to teach us, we gain wisdom.

Dig in.


Discover your potential and promote it.


Work from the inside out.

Deal with Uncertainty

“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.”  Kenko

In the 14th century, a poet and Buddhist monk named Yoshido Kenko wrote thoughts on life, death, nature, manners, humility and simplicity. He lived in exile at a cottage where he composed his essays.

Kenko believed in 'zuihitsu' - follow the brush - as a method of composition.  He painted thoughts as they came to him on scraps of paper, then attached them to his cottage walls. They survived through the centuries by chance.  A poet friend collected them from the walls. Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) became a part of Japanese literature.

He felt leaving something incomplete gives room for growth. Kenko disliked perfection, believing asymmetry and irregularity became better goals in life. His imagery included moons in the clouds, cherry blossoms strewn and faded on the earth. He admired the uncertainty of a branch about to blossom.

Here are three of Kenko's views.
                     
How will you follow the brush today and write about them?

A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky.

Are we only to look at flowers in full bloom, at the moon when it is clear?

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.

Write with the Weather

How do we nourish and sustain relationships with family and friends? Often we attempt to provide a lighthouse for those we care about.

If frustrated with their choices, we rush into the turbulence with lifeboats.

Too many buoys thrown in the water conk some strugglers in the head. Canoes require collaboration and tip easily. We have learned not to send a sailboat into a tsunami.

Exhausted, we climb back into the lighthouse and dust the lens. Sometimes we call for a tugboat to get everyone past the harbor. We breathe and hope for a change in the weather.

Reciprocity rules in relationships that last. We also thrive in a reciprocity with writing. For writing to nurture us, we desire the thrills and rhythm to sustain our sense of direction. 

Writing must provide support as we struggle through the fog. Often this relationship feels unrequited. We push and push clutching for words that drown beyond our reach.

Similar to our relationships with others, we must figure out for ourselves what Aristotle meant by, “Know thyself.” What do we know about our individual strengths and challenges when churning in a wordless maelstrom? We need to re-create our self-assurance and find a Positive to remind us what works. A “learn thyself” process keeps us going.

Nine Preparations for inclement weather:

1. Stock your own life raft while the sun shines. What are your best resources? During the times of flow, write down what works for you. What have you done “this time” to push beyond?

2. Challenge yourself to discover ways to return to the page or screen. Turn up the music. Sit there and let fingers fly without worry about the result. Don’t become anxious to create a finished piece.

3. Learn your rhythm. Chart your mind’s peaks and valleys by week. Give yourself a day of rest and read a variety of words. Choose words that amuse or amaze. Write one word or one sentence on colored cards.

4. As you begin to learn about yourself, consider: Does creativity increase the closer you get to the deadline? Can you count on this? What other ways could you manage your creativity? Consider setting an earlier deadline to trick the “procrastinating creative.”

5. When frustration floods, return to research and information gathering. Write a letter to your writing as a friend. Ask this pal for help.

6. Most breakthroughs occur when you move away from the project. Take a walk. Write about forces of nature deal with weather.

7. Consider improbable connections. Let your ideas rearrange in kaleidoscopic fashion.

8. Write your process for all writing projects. Notice it does not progress in a linear fashion. This will become your Best Friend.

9. Create your own metaphor for struggle. Consider your greatest accomplishment and how you achieved it. Use all your senses to recall it in detail.

Animal Stories

About 12,000 years ago, wolves with friendly natures wandered into Native American camps.  Soon they became protectors, hunters and pack animals. Later dogs became children's playmates and family members.  Animals have provided physical and mental needs of human beings throughout history.

In Native American culture, animals assumed spiritual roles through shamanism, as power animals or totems. People believed the animals became helpers and healers to anyone who sought them out. 

Shamanism explains that everyone is thought to have a power animal or animal spirits that live in the should to protect and imbue them with wisdom. Horses and owls were the earliest used by the Shaman.

Choose two animals. Give them a desire to have traits or special powers and write a story. Try a turtle who has the desire to fly. He meets a bird who wishes to speak a human language. What if a bear wants to become huggable instead of fierce? He meets a snail who begs for the power of an eagle.

Play with the notion of animals and their needs.  

Keep asking  . . .  and then what happens?