"Finding Your Own North Star" - Martha Beck

 Martha Beck - we carry 2 different selves in our heads, some speaking more loudly than others.

• Social self - learn from our families and cultures about what's "good" and what we "should" want. But also provides the skills that carry us toward our goals.
• Essential self - get from your genes. our inner child. helps you to know what you "really" want (even if no one else benefits).

Meditation

 Be here, be present. At peace with what is, and if not, pushing in the direction I want, if things can be changed, and if they can't, pushing back on my want to change me so that I can be at peace with what is. 

Retirement Planning

 Talking to my friend this morning about how he fills his days, since he's retired (and has been for 6 years, starting at age 56).

It's got me thinking about how I would spend my days if I wasn't on the treadmill of all that I have to do - driving kids to school, going to work, driving kids to therapy, cooking "dinner" that everyone will eat. There's probably 2 hours of "family time" that's either watching something together, doing homework, or playing games (not as often as we should, but supposedly every Tues/Thurs eve). Then there's 2 hours of time that I can read or watch something that I want before sleep. Too often that's falling down the rabbit hole of news or Seth Meyers or Stephen Colbert while I play Yukon solitaire or do an online jigsaw.

Good nights are when I do a 20-minute Yoga with Adrienne. Or walk the dog. Or read when I go to bed. Or fall asleep early.

And if I don't make great choices most nights with my 2 hours of me time, what on earth will I do with a whole day? A whole "rest of my life" of days?

So, to set some intentions or imagine the world I want to birth with possibilities, here's an ideal day:

I wake up when I wake up. No alarms. Go for a run or walk. Yoga. Meditation. Puttering/picking up. Put something in crockpot for dinner. Lunch with a friend. Head to volunteer job at church or around town. Reading with kids? Working in the church office? Then dinner with my husband. Watch a little something. Yoga or meditation or walk before bed. Maybe a little reading or journaling. Sleep when I want. Wake when I wake.

That sounds SO GOOD. 

What we pay attention to makes up our lives. What we practice grows stronger.

Morning Meditation - Jonathan Lehmann

 Video

Affirmations:

1.      I make plans but remain flexible. I try to say yes as often as possible.

2.      I cultivate patience, and by doing so, I cultivate self confidence

3.      I welcome the opportunity to step outside my comfort zone, and I do not let myself be guided by fear.

4.      I love myself unconditionally because it’s essential to my happiness. I love the person who I am, and I do not need other people’s approval to love myself fully.

5.      I’m going to drink water, eat fruit and vegetables, walk, take stairs, and exercise. Today, I’m giving love to my body.

6.      I give everywhere I go, even if only a smile, a compliment, or my full attention. Listening is the best gift I can give to those around me.

7.      I try to be impeccable with my word and to speak only to spread positivity. It’s counter productive to speak against myself or others. 

"Sorrow Is Not My Name" (poem) - Ross Gay

 - after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No

matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.

There is a time for everything. Look,

just this morning a vulture

nodded his red, grizzled head at me,

and I looked at him, admiring

the sickle of his beak.

Then the wind kicked up, and,

after arranging that good suit of feathers

he up and took off.

Just like that. And to boot,

there are, on this planet alone, something like two

million naturally occurring sweet things,

some with names so generous as to kick

the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,

stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks

at the market. Think of that. The long night,

the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me

on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.

But look; my niece is running through a field

calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel

and at the end of my block is a basketball court.

I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.

      —for Walter Aikens

"Wait" (poem) - Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

"To the Young Who Want to Die" (poem) - Gwendolyn Brooks

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.

You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.

You need not die today.
Stay here--through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.