Hi Friends,
I’ve been consuming information like my life depends on it, but the creation side of the balance has been a little less forthcoming. Usually this happens because I’ve made the stakes too high for myself; I’m wanting to make something profound and perfect, and feel unequal to the task.
So I’m going to blatantly do the opposite today 🙂 We’ll see what comes up later.
I’m not really far enough along in any of these books to give you a good synopsis, but if you want to see books I’ve read this year, check out my Pinterest board here. Also, yes, I’m always reading at least two books at a time. One of the nonfiction/personal development books is specifically read in 10-20 minute bursts as part of my Miracle Morning practice, another nonfiction I usually read one chapter at a time before bed, and the other just… hangs out with me all the time.
My favorite breakfast is still lemon sardines (smashed with onions, capers, and sunflower seeds) on toast. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
And I’ve also been making this salad. Or rather, I made the salad dressing, and it’s the type of salad dressing you could pour over an old tire and make it taste good, so I’m just making salads with whatever I have on hand.
Someone left a comment on this post about yearning and love, wondering how any true desire of mine could break someone else’s heart. I love the comment, and am writing to myself on the topic so far, but will eventually publish my findings. The honest truth is I have only the vaguest guess as to what the specific desire was, but the comment is inspiring me to think more about how my desires pull me outside of myself and into relationship with other people, and how often relationships are fraught with competing desires.
Body Image and Beauty. I need to write an essay, and this is the topic that’s calling to me. Here are the seeds I’m soaking:
There’s more here, but I’m mostly thinking about why we crave beauty. Once you take away all the ways we reach for beauty and perfection in order to assure safety and belonging, there’s still a compelling pull of beauty, something that brings us into life and relationship.
I’m traveling to India at the end of February, on a yoga trip led by a dear friend and fellow yoga teacher. And I decided to layover a few days in Dubai. Anyone ever been? Specific tips on anything I should do?
Making Eating Psychology videos! For Beyond Emotional Eating, I make two videos a week. I mostly decided to do it to add some variety to the format, and so people could see me, and maybe listening or watching some topics are better than others, and I’m really enjoying it. I’m feeling the pull to make more videos as an alternative to writing here, but I struggle with the idea that the videos should be under 10 minutes, and I also struggle to think of topics I think you guys don’t already know. But I’ve been loving youtube and podcasts for the past few months, so there’s some energy there. Any thoughts? Are you into videos? Or do you prefer to read?
More about my word for 2016. I chose “Lionheart,” and it both inspires and confounds me, as a good word probably should.
I stumbled upon, rather than chose, Lionheart. I had been looking for a word like courage, heart, or brave. Courage as a word doesn’t do for me what courage as a concept does for me. I could listen to people talk about courage for days, but the word itself is hollow for me. Heart is a lot of the quality I want, but too gentle. And brave was the best placeholder for what I want, but was missing the wild and free connotation I craved.
But I looked up “brave” in the thesaurus and there was Lionheart. I immediately wanted to write it all over my arms and make a vision board for it. It’s fierce and wild, but also grounded and steady.
I looked up “Lion” in my “Animal Speak” book and found the following:
The idea of the young lion being associated with the rising sun is most significant. Since the females of the pride do most of the work, it actually reflects the idea of the rising of the feminine energies. The sun has not always been a masculine symbol. It does give birth to new days, and it nurtures and warms life This is not stretching the correlation to see the lion as the assertion of feminine energies to bring forth new power.
When a lion has shown up, there will be opportunity to awaken to a new sun. Trust your feminine energies — creativity, intuition, and imagination. These will add new sunshine to your life.
Making a commonplace book.
Spring cleaning. I think I’m the only person in the world that hasn’t read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but I still get the itch to get rid of stuff every year.
Morning pages. Always. Forever.