I'm typing this on my new iPhone, which means I can blog from anywhere! This is a test of the emergency broadcasting system! Let's see if it works…
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Just felt like sitting down and typing a few words of gratitude. My life is getting so busy and my success is growing and as it does so does my stress. I woke up this morning with a sore jaw. When I was younger, I had no awareness when it came to my body. I was so detached from it. Now, after years of yoga and therapy, I might not have stopped the stress and fear completely, but I have figured out how to recognize it. I know what it means: it means today I slow down, today I take care of myself. The amazing thing is that when I slowed down today, I felt overwhelming gratitude for myself. I felt like "wow I matter." I matter to myself. I care enough about myself to be kind to myself. It's so crazy to me. I would have let the fear chase me into being grumpy before, but instead I slowed down and found love.
Maybe that was what I was afraid of all along.
People say it, they pray for it, they sometimes even take action. Well, it's the new year and what happens every January 1st? People set out to do better. And I believe that they mean it. I believe they intend to do better.
But then what happens? January turns into February, February turns into March and so on. The complexities of life happen and we slack, we think "I'll get to it later" and then later doesn't come until the next January 1st.
I am guilty of this myself. I have always intended to be a kind person because that's who I am at my core. But I let circumstances in my life turn me cold. I blamed others for my life; there is a little truth to that. Some of the things that happened to me were no fault of mine, but the world doesn’t know that.
The World judges me on my actions. We are supposed to be taught that as children that it's not our intentions that matter, it's our actions. But who is going to teach us that? Generations of people who say, "I didn't mean to do that" or "that was not my intention"? I have had people treat me poorly and known in my gut what's right and that I should fight for it, but someone else would ask, "Sue, do you really want to waste your time with that?" Inside I would think yes, but do the opposite. That action caused me to get angrier and angrier. I was a victim of my own choices, not a victim of being treated poorly.
I was so frustrated and grumpy that the action of hope was not a possibility until I decided to take responsibility. It was time for me to take responsibility for my own excavation. I had to be responsible for my own love. I had to dig in and find it for me and for others.
You see one day I said, "Yes, I really do want to waste my time with that" and you know what that got me? Respect, and, lots of times, money. I struggle every day with how to keep my hope when such awful tragedies happen every day. And the only answer I can come up with is: I want to waste my time on it. I want to waste my time on the fight that it takes to remain hopeful. I want to wake up everyday and exert myself. I want to matter.
I also believe that the only way the world will ever change is if people start treating each other with dignity and respect. That means kids, parents, priests, criminals, exes, bosses, people who have done you so wrong you could spit. I actually think the latter are the ones who need it most. You see if you spit, you are making the world worse. If you treat them with human dignity they have nothing to push up against.
This does not mean let people walk all over you; it means look them in the eye, keep your voice low and say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't say it mean. It means exert yourself, fight the good hope fight, and don't crumble under the harshness of others.
Change takes time and in order to change, you gotta do something over and over again; you need stamina. Let's live everyday like it's January 1st.
Hi there everyone! So, I re-vamped the site and it took me a minute to figure out all the passwords. But hopefully I'm all squared away to let my thoughts flow. Chin up, Heart open :)
I was in LA for a bunch of weeks over the past couple of months and I met some big Hollywood people, went to some fancy dinners and got lots of accolades, but the thing that sticks most is my exchange with my friend’s 12-year-old son.
We will call him "Precious" because that's the nickname I gave him. Precious read me four of his creative writing stories and one of them started with a kid who had a Mom and a Dad who lived in the same house, and he wrote "which was very unusual now a days." Precious has a Mom and Dad that love him very much, but they never married and don't live together.
After he read me his stories, we had a private yoga lesson, and then I asked Precious to take me to Culver City because I had not seen it since they did it over. As soon as we started walking, he saw an art gallery and said, "Sue let's go in here, it's the only cool place around."
While in the art gallery, I asked him if he wanted me to take him to a museum while I was in LA. He said, "Yes the Getty." The next day we went to the Getty and if you want to read the rest you'll have to come back tomorrow...
Here's a little tease: The fact that I can say that I was in Los Angeles and wasn't so consumed with fear, that I actually saw another human being and may have even helped, is a miracle in and of itself.
1. I lose trust in those who are there to help
2. My self esteem and belief in myself are diminished
3. I lose time for myself and others
4. I lose faith in my instincts
5. Money is lost
6. My energy is depleted
7. I lose hope in my future
8. My concentration is severely diminished
9. I lose my ability to allow nurturing foods into my body
10. My voice falls silent.
Last summer I was on my friends gorgeous sail boat. It was 90 degrees out and we stopped to swim. Immediately I went downstairs to put my bathing suit on and as I was changing, I heard the others talking about whether it would be cold or not, or if there were sharks in the water.
As I listened to them talk something came over me, an urge. There are lots of times in life that we are supposed to suppress our urges because they are socially unacceptable. But there are also lots of times that we suppress urges that would cause us to be free and experience pure, unadulterated fun.
This was one of those times. I had the urge to run up the stairs and jump off the side of the boat without stopping so I did it — cold and sharky water and all.
The second I hit the water everyone on the boat leaped in after me. Some even still had their clothes on.
Later, one of the guys on the boat pulled me aside and said that it was one of the most spiritual things he'd ever experienced.
Simple as that: I jumped, they followed, we all had fun.
Spirituality — try it.