Creating with intention
art
music
nature
fixing
writing
walking
helping
praying
laughing
tinkering
exploring
reading
hiking
organizing
scultping
discovering
drawing
planting
analyzing
dancing
donating
planning
dreaming
yoga
hosting
gardening
meditating
sewing
giving
playing
cleaning
running
loving
singing
crafts
gratitude
building
painting
connecting
do more of that.
This is the best piece of advice I have received: If you’re planning on a miracle, you don’t have a plan.
A large sum of money that suddenly comes into your possession. A phone call from a famous person who wants to interview you. A perfect press announcement in the nation’s most popular newspaper. A prize.
Plan on making your own miracle. You’ll be a lot more successful that way.
The natural world has visible cycles. Earth lies fallow but with rain, new plants sprout to life. Leaves fall and spring comes again. Inhales and exhales.
This same life force runs through you.
We exhale in order to breathe.
Sometimes you feel alive and energetic and awake. Other times you feel tired, alone, and shy.
Why do we chase away darkness instead of learning to dance with it? Or sit with it? Or embrace it?
Lulls never last.
Give yourself the space to grieve. To take time off. To rest.
Make yourself a priority. Follow that which sets your imagination on fire. Permit yourself the gift of excitement.
Rhythms should be celebrated.
Take care of yourself.
We often consider how far we have to left to go.
Three more days until holiday.
$10,000 to hit our fundraiser.
Two terms left in the fiscal year.
Four more miles in this run.
Six credits to meet requirements.
Yet how often do we measure and appreciate the distance we’ve traveled?
Let the ground you’ve already covered fuel you.
The internet has made it easy to sit back and watch and endlessly consume other people’s opinions, actions, projects, and work. It is now so easy to be a passive observer, to be someone who sits on the sidelines while others play in the game.
It is difficult to create. It takes time and dedication and focus. It takes courage to put something out in the world, something that might be discarded or mocked or rejected or possibly even ignored. But your livelihood requires this of you. Your happiness and passion are fueled by creativity. Building, writing, drawing, pasting, singing, connecting — these actions will inspire you.
Read good writing. Look at art. Find pictures and places that inspire you. But don’t count on others to do all of the work. Set a goal, make a few mistakes, and love the process. Your heart needs this.
Your heart is broken. Maybe for the first time, maybe for the fifth. You have two choices now.
You can allow pain and anger to seep through your being and go about shielding yourself from any scenario that might cause these feelings again. This will undoubtedly result in limited encounters with the world, stifled relationships, and a blunted emotional experience.
OR
You can look for the lessons. You can dive into the pain and see if you can find greater understanding, more peace, more authenticity, and more focus than ever before. Instead of running, you can sit with the experience and breathe into it, knowing that eventually, slowly, it will pass. That in time small ripples of joy will wash healing currents through your life.
Past failures and disappointments only dictate your future if you let them. Seek out daily moments of magic and wonder. Flashes of lightening in a night sky. The impish smirk of a young child. The rustle of leaves at dusk. Kindness between strangers.
This is how you go on.