MoxieLife

Tickled Pink - May Photo Challenge #connectwithpc

The reason I am doing this challenge is to remember to take the time to notice my life. To be thoughtful. To engineer my own days and not feel flung around. Little things like this help.

May Photo Challenge

Following along with Paper Coterie, who I follow on Instagram. The month of May is dedicated to documenting the beauty of a life well lived. Something I have in leaps and bounds. #connectwithpc

Taming My Inner Monster

This weekend, for my whole life really, I have struggled with being generous of spirit. My inclination is to tighten up in a ball, fix my eyes until they are steely and purse my lips really tight. To not give in. To not be nice. To not be generous with my words or actions.

I know. You aren't like that. You are perfectly filled with love and grace. You give and give and give.

At least I think you do because I compare myself to the imaginary you all the time. I figure everyone else is easily loving. Easily able to accept that others get more then they do. Easily able to share in someone else's good fortune.

Not me. I'm a meany.

But I don't want to be. Really.

I want to be loving and kind and filled with generous words of spirit - and mean it.

I really do want you to be happy, successful, filled with joy and all the things that make you happy. It just takes me a minute to get there.

What happens is like a quick monster overcomes my heart and I feel myself tense up into a knot as it grabs all the kind words out of my throat and stuffs them in to my belly. My fists clench into tight balls and I stop breathing as I press my lips tighter and tighter together. My eyes go into slits as they zero in on the target.

If I can just take one breath, I can move through that feeling into something else. Sometimes it takes just a moment and I remind myself what I really want for others - not the stinginess that swells inside. Other times it takes months, maybe even years.

It is why I sit and why I write. I journal to process all of that. To get it out on paper. To move past it. I sit in mediation, however badly, to do the same thing. My mind wanders off to relive the painful moment or the why not me moment and then I remind myself and go back to my breath. It is all a process.

Sometimes it is easier, sometimes not, but at least I am trying. So, if I, at first, seem cold or distant I am probably taming my inner monster. Give me a minute... I'll come around.

Book Review: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first few chapters of this book I didn't think I was going to be able to finish. Seriously, heroin. Really? I have known people addicted to heroin and I am sure that it is something that people wanting to self-destruct do, but this seemed the most far reaching of ideas.

I digress, her mom dies, she sleeps around - a lot, she divorces -see the sleeping around, she meets a guy who hooks her up with heroin - again I'm a bit incredulous, she shoots her mom's horse and sometime in there she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

Now, that is why I picked up the darn book in the first place.

Hiking the PCT is something I have always imagined myself doing. It is in my far off fantasy life. It is what I want to do when I have 3 extra months - and money to cover them. It is a dream.

So, reading a first hand, albeit 20 year break, look at what it takes a solo woman hiker to do the trail is what drew me in and kept me reading. Her memory, journals and letters to past PCT hikers brings the entire experience alive. It is fresh, it is grueling, and it is a rock this world for women adventure. Great fun to live vicariously through Cheryl... despite the heroin thing.

She is just about my age, I think, and walked it in her early 20's - when the trail was fairly new - and I am so glad that she took the time to share her adventure. She is triumphant and we get to experience a little of that with her.

View all my reviews

Please Pull Over

Yesterday I had a lovely afternoon with my daughter and was driving home. I realized half way home, it's an hour away, that I had to pee. I also realized that the person ahead was driving 30 in a 55. Yes, it's curvy. Yes, the roads are narrow. Here's the thing though, if you have 6 or more cars behind you, you should pull over.

I'm probably behind you and I seriously have to pee.

Four New Things in My Life

Now that I am back in the swing of things I am diving into life with gusto - like a Tropicana commercial or a Ford Truck (yes, I came of age on television and it is my most often thought of cultural reference). With that I am trying the following things:

• Just Get Up: This is the most fought thing in my life. Getting up when I don't have to. I have always gotten up to meet a deadline, get to a meeting, go to work and if I don't have a schedule I will just wait to get up until I actually have to. So, say 8:45 instead of 7AM. The idea of having a relaxing morning is not something I grew up with or am used to. But I am trying it. I am getting up the 2nd time the dog says something. He first goes out at 6:15 and I let him out - I COULD get up then, but I don't. I get back into bed. I get up when I let him back in. This is new and although I feel fine I went to bed at 9:30 last night, so there is that.
• 20/20/20: So, now that I have these hours before I really have to get to work I am doing a new routine. 20 minutes of sitting meditation, 20 minutes of writing and 20 minutes of movement. I figure I will try this for 20 days. I am on day 2... so far so good.
• MyFitnessPal.com: A friend posted that she needed to lose 10 pounds on Facebook because her doctor said she did. Another friend of hers commented that she uses MyFitnessPal the app and online site to keep track of her food diary, exercise and water intake. I have 30 pounds to lose. 30. Which to me is a big number and I figured if her friend who has lost 30 pounds did it this way I could try it too. It doesn't cost anything, but it is a bit of an obsessive way to live. Yesterday if I had just not had the Vivani dark chocolate my day would have been perfect - but,well, I wanted chocolate.
• Chips Ahoy: No, not the cookies (I hate those cookies). Chips. I love chips. Spefically corn tortilla chips. I eat them every single day with salsa. Fresh salsa. I love it. It is crunchy and salty goodness. But really, they should be called "Fried Food for Fatty Mc Fat Fats". Seriously. They are just as bad a fried chicken, doughnuts, and all other amazingly tasting fried things that are bad for you. Tortilla Chips = Fried Food. And the serving size is 7. 7 chips. Come on. Who is going to eat 7 tortilla chips. So, I am looking for an alternative - or I have to give them up and that makes me sad.

What's new in your world?

Starting Again

After a month long pity party I am back. That is all I can call it. A month where I sulked, brooded, railed and was sad over a stupid rejection. I stopped writing, I stopped sitting, I stopped - sure if you know me you think I was busy (projects, travel, cooking, etc.), but this work - the work of writing and reflection went out the window, but I am back.

That is what happens to me when I am overcome by emotion. I don't really want to explore it in that moment on the page. I don't really want to sit with it. I don't even really want to talk about it.

I want it to just boil and brew in my heart.

Then I get over it.

Really.

So, now I start again. Aren't we always starting again?

Flickr Image

Not Defending Mine

Today I have been thinking about the need to respond, defend, or say something. Do we really need to? All of the time?

Here is the scenario. I posted the above photo on Pinterest to share with my daughter. I have a board called For Noodle where I share things I think she would like. A whole bunch of people look at that board, but I don't care. I treat it like a private conversation with my daughter that you are welcome to overhear.

Because I didn't realize, I had allowed those boards to also be shared on Facebook. (This seems like such a "First World Problem" (a term I don't love, but you know what I mean.)

It was there that a woman I kind of know from my small town commented ,"Is that a gun she's holding? Ugh!"

In which I felt the need to defend my post by saying, "I actually love retro western guns... It's all Annie Oakley."

Which she replied, "I think it still sends a "wrong message"...one should NEVER point a gun!"

Now, I know this innocuous. It is a small thing. What I felt though was the need to DEFEND myself and that need rose quickly through me. Seconds.

But what if there is another way. What if we lay ourselves out there. Our words. Our thoughts. Our ideas. Our art. Our likes and dislikes. And we don't defend them.

The reason this matters is that if we think about what we are saying, doing, sharing we wouldn't need to defend them. If we stand behind them with all of our integrity then what other people think is just what they think. It doesn't effect what we have shared, done or created. We can let them have thier own thoughts about it.

When I think about this I realize I have spent a lifetime defending myself. My fists balled up at my sides, lips pursed, ready for a fight. That feeling is uncessary or if it is it can also just pass through like a cloud on a breezy day. What a different way to live and experience others. Me having my thoughts. You having yours. Me not defending mine.

Not Getting Swept Up In Anger

I am reading Dharma Road about a cabdriver/zen student and last night I read a chapter on anger. Something I have been thinking about for some time - and especially in the last several days after several flare ups that I've had. He talked about breathing through anger and that succumbing to it is where the road veers off into dangerous territory. He even suggested a mantra - just say something to get you through the initial feelings. All good ideas.

First, anger happens.

We all get angry. I experience it just like a fever - it rises in me until my ears are throbbing. It is as if an alien has entered my body and is taking hold and then just as soon as that happens it can vanish (that is one tricky alien.) Anything can trigger it. It can be that I am tired and hungry. I can smell something unpleasant. Someone can say something that triggers something too close to home. I can feel injustice or that "life isn't fair" feeling. It can even be something so infinitesimal that I don't know what triggers the emotion - and all of a sudden I am swept up in it as if I was standing on the edge of the ocean and the riptide is pulling me under.

Trying not to get swept up in it.

The key, for me, is to not get swept up. It is to feel the feeling that is happening and to catch it right when it happens. To notice the change quickly. 

I should note that I come from a quick tempered family - easily enraged, yelling, slamming doors - so this practice does not come easily.

When I do notice, it is important that I tuck myself into myself by removing myself from others. Leave the room, get off the phone, get out of the store, whatever it is quickly and calmly. Not slamming doors or stomping off. Just excusing myself as quickly as possible.

If I can't get out, then not talking is the very best thing. No one needs to hear me rant. No one needs to see me ball my fists and give them the what now. No one. Instead, just like in the Dharma Road, breathe out through the lips. Feel the air on your lips as you exhale. Seems like a strange idea, but if you are concentrating on the breath it is a little bit harder to get caught up in being mad.

If you still can't get through it the very best thing, and the thing I hate to do the most, is walk it off. Seriously. A fifteen minute walk can do wonders for your mood. You can rant all you want in your head, but after a quick paced walk that feeling starts to drift a bit.

There are no easy answers to being angry.

I just know that sensing it quickly, not giving it more then it deserves, breathing through it and walking it off are quite possibly the best things to do. If you are still angry after that writing, talking with a trusted friend (not venting, not a fan of venting) or even a longer work out can help.

Like I said, we all get angry, it is what we do when it happens that matters.

UU World Never Ceases to Amaze Me

 

Back in 2009 I wrote a blog post about the UU World pulling the Freedom From Religion Foundation's ads promoting the separation of church and state. I was shocked that they buckled to primarily Christian idealism within the UUA. Shocked and angry. 

 

This month, low and behold, there is an ad that is dubious on so many levels that twice I had to check that I was actually reading my denominations publication.

Diamonds.

Specifically a "free" diamond pendant - it looks like a Franklin Mint ad.

Tacky, not related to the mission of our organization, and quite possibly the most offensive ad I have ever seen in our publication. 

Here's the deal, I don't wear diamonds. On purpose. They are dirty with the blood of innocents and the greed of corporations. They are the epitome of what I find wrong with our society. They put value on a shiny rock without caring about how those shiny rocks come to be on our fingers, ears and wrists. They are symbols of a system that is broken, corrupt and cares nothing about the death and destruction of the regions that they mine these rocks.

The idea of blood diamonds & conflict diamonds isn't new. Hell, I think there have been countless movies, articles and documentaries about the problem.

I am no expert on it, but I care enough not to wear them, purchase them or celebrate them.

Sure, you can go dig diamonds yourself in my state - and for that I celebrate every moment you are sifting through rocks and sand, but if you are wearing a diamond that you have no real idea where the origin is I am suspect of your morals. Or you just don't know about the issues concerning the shiny stones.

So, I get that the UU World has to sell advertising. I understand that advertising is hard to come by to such a niche group, but when I see this I think that you are just pandering to what you think might be acceptable to the group as a whole, cashing the check and not caring about the larger picture.

Raise dues if the cost of printing is too high. Put it all digitally if the cost is too high. Scrub the project if the cost is too high. Have every darn affiliate group have to buy and ad (polymore, Christian, Buddhist... the list goes on). But don't sell our organization out for a few shiny rocks.

Shame on you.

NOTE: Chris Walton commented quickly that the diamonds are created in a lab - they aren't real. And maybe that was obvious to you, but it wasn't to me.