A midlife post on emotional breakdowns, epiphanies, slumber parties and life as the “weird mom.”
The Mist
Woke up this morning to the usual mist known as “the marine layer.” This mist, is more like the heavy fog one might associate with London rather than the sunny city of Los Angeles, yet seven out of ten days, I wake up with about ten feet of visibility.
The cool, creepy fog that is just as much a part of the city as the beach or palm trees, is almost a resident secret. I imagine thousands of tourist must wake up and think “What the heck? THIS is not what I paid for! Oh well, we’ll probably have to plan for an indoor activity now…” Within hours though, the mist is gone, usually giving way to the beautiful electric blue sky.
The mist comes into the city like a protective, moist blanket. It’s what keeps Los Angeles from feeling like the desert.
This morning, I thought about how many times in life I’d been disappointed or hurt by circumstances and how these problems seemed overwhelming and endless. It wasn’t until I was able to reflect on these experiences that I realized, like the mist, they were a necessary contribution to my life. As I look upon the landscape of my life, I see the diversity of my experience, beliefs, friendships and I realize that most of my peace has resulted from the times I had to surrender.
Surrender doesn’t mean laying down dead, it means being “ok” at worst and at best being “AWESOME;” no matter what happens. I wanna be one of those old ladies with deep laugh lines and strong arms. I wanna have people look into my eyes and still see the twinkle and I wanna lay my head down and sleep like a baby.
For now, I drink my tea and welcome the mist…
ReTHINK jumping on the bed!
Image by emurray via Flickr
Have you ever noticed how children naturally enjoy jumping on a bed? My kids are total JUMPING beans. During our move, I dismantled their beds so we could move them and one day I noticed that they were having the best time jumping on their mattresses. Out of habit I was about to stop them and then I thought, why? With their mattresses on the floor, they were safer than on a bed several feet up and I was having such a good time watching them giggle, I decided to join them.
Wow!
Just as the astronauts experience while floating in space, your body is in a state of weightlessness at the top of the bounce. I hadn’t felt so free in a while. The workout was quite good too, so I decided to do some investigating. I found out that jumping is great for the body…
Amplify’d from www.livestrong.com
I don’t have a mini trampoline but I’ve decided to leave their mattresses on the floor. My kids enjoy some supervised jump time and guess what? So do I!
The Optimist Creed
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| From The Thoughts of an Angel Awakened |
Having just been accused of being an “Optimist,” I thought it only appropriate I post a significant piece of work on the subject. The Optimist Creed was written in 1912 by Chistian D. Larson. I think it’s still a valuable source of inspiration today.
Social Media Tip:
I used BeFunky to create the “framed art” for this post. Befunky is a super easy and fun online photo editor. I chose Cinch for the podcast. I downloaded the Cinch app to my iPhone but chose to record through my laptop. Cinch also makes creating and sharing media, a breeze.
The Power of Positive Thinking
Music To Inspire Positive Thinking
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Seeing is Believing or Believing is Seeing…
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| Photo by Neal Fowler from his Flickr Album “ GARAGE OF THE IMMACULATE SOUL” |
Seeing is a complicated event. I did a simple search for the definition of “sight” and came up with tons of meanings.
Sight:
1a: something that is seen with the eye
2a : a thing regarded as worth seeing —usually used in plural <the sights of the city> b : something ludicrous or disorderly in appearance <you look a sight>
3a : the process, power, or function of seeing; specifically : the physical sense by which light stimuli received by the eye are interpreted by the brain and constructed into a representation of the position, shape, brightness, and usually color of objects in space b : mental or spiritual perception c : mental view; specifically : judgment
4a : the act of looking at or beholding b : inspection, perusal c : view, glimpse d : an observation to determine direction or position (as by a navigator)
5a : a perception of an object by or as if by the eye <never lost sight of the objective> b : the range of vision <was nowhere in sight>
7: an aspiration
To see, light touches the eyes and the brain interprets the data into electrical signals which in turn are converted into information. The fact of the matter is that how your eye’s scientifically process light may have little to do with how you “see” things in the end. Some people have 20/20 vision yet they don’t really “see” what’s going on. Some people, on the other hand “see” the world in ways that are inspiring, poetic, prophetic…
You ever notice how some people, many of them photographers, catch these INCREDIBLE moments? These are moments that most would miss but these people, these “special” people seem to see differently. For the picture above, photographer Neal Fowler writes “North from my garage is a bush that catches the nicest raindrops and shows them off when the sun comes out, a broken watery bush of loveliness. 🙂 Best viewed holding a glass of something chilled.”
THANK YOU Neal. Thanks for seeing and sharing about the bushes behind your garage. I was inspired to look at the spider infested foliage behind MY garage in a new light and I found a miracle…
When I first started on my journey out of anxiety, I determined that in order to live a beautiful life, I must seek and absorb beauty everyday. Daily, I ask myself “what beauty exists around your home or even in the MIRROR that you are not seeing?” People can praise us for our beauty everyday but unless we see and BELIEVE it, we will never know what it feels like to be beautiful. What a shame because we are ALL beautiful.
To conclude my observation on this subject today, I leave you with a favorite song by the legendary Stevie Wonder…
Social Media Tip:
I use Flickr as an image search engine. When I make a query, I will often be surprised and delighted by what an artist has tagged as that word or phrase. The photographs on Flickr range from the hobbyist to the ultra-professional so just be sure when you use the photo, you have the license to do so.
Just for laughs…
Image via WikipediaI come from a family of funny people. Not just people with a sense of humor but people who have made a living making other people laugh. As a matter of fact, for my brother’s funeral, (Rick Aviles was a comedian but best known for his menacing role in Ghost) we had a memorial at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood. People left in tears… of LAUGHTER.
When I feel less than perfect, I like to call a friend who makes me cry out loud with laughter. This friend has the kind of laugh that is infectious. When she laughs, I don’t even need to find what she said funny, I just start laughing too. Inevitably when I get off the phone, I feel better!
Of course, I did some research to find out why…
Laughing releases “happy chemicals” into the body. By letting laughter into every part of our body and our mind, we’re chemically altering our physical state and immediately into the here and now mentally.
Today, if you’re feeling less than 100%, take the adage of “laughter being the best medicine” literally. Try a little laugh therapy (also called laughing meditation or laughter yoga) The techniques simply involves inhaling deeply, then exhaling while laughing. Really want to go out on a limb? Try to experience the freedom of spontaneous laughter. Just laugh. No jokes, just laugh out of nowhere, like children do! One study on the subject, stated children laugh about 400 to 500 times a day, while an adult may laugh 15 times a day. Why do kids get to laugh, “just cause,” but adults determine that it’s not ok?
Need some help? Check out the laughing room at http://doasone.com
Mondo New York (NY)
Ghost
I’d Rather Laugh: How to be Happy Even When Life Has Other Plans forYou
Laugh Yourself Healthy: Keep the doctor away —with a giggle a day!
Social Media Tip:
I use Zemanta to easily enrich and inform this blog. The Zemanta plug-in for Firefox, reads my post, then combs the web for the most relevant images, smart links, keywords and text, instantly serving these results so I can quickly create an interesting SEO friendly post.
