Category: Inspirational Musing

December Writing Challenge · Inspirational Musing · Uncategorized

Setting an Intention for the New Year

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Often at the beginning of yoga the teacher will talk to students about setting an intention for their practice. This is designed to help students focus their awareness and attention on a quality or virtue they want to cultivate on the mat. The thought is that by incorporating a specific quality or virtue into your practice, you will be able to carry it into your life off of the mat.

In the past, I would always select huge concepts like inner peace or patience as my intention. However, my awareness and attention during class was completely focused on either the inflexibility of my body and/or the difficulty of the pose. It isn’t a surprise that I rarely left class feeling any sense of inner peace or patience. During a recent class, I decided to set a basic intention of accepting my body for where it is. Whenever I had difficulty with a pose, I gently reminded myself that whatever I could do was enough. And as a result, not only did I leave class feeling more at peace, throughout the rest of the day I found myself being more gentle in my self-talk. That experience totally changed the way I experience yoga.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to set an intention, especially as we approach the New Year. The goals or resolutions that we set are determined by what we want to accomplish in the coming year. Lose weight. Find a job. Write a book. Publish book?. But these ideas come from our thinking mind rather than a longing from our highest self*. An intention is birthed at the core of our heart where we find our deepest truth. It’s our most heartfelt desire and realizing it leads to a sense of fulfillment.

We all want to experience the satisfaction of living a fulfilled life. So we set goals and make resolutions in January to guide our steps. But often, like my quest of inner peace in yoga class, we come away frustrate because our attention and focus drifts. We get too busy to go to the gym. We too tired after work to write, so we watch television instead. It takes too much effort to count points or whatever the diet requires. And at the end of the year we become a bunch of cynics, who don’t make resolutions because they “never stick”.   

What if instead we set a small intention for the year that speaks to our heart? It’s harder to figure out exactly what that should be, because we have to quiet our brain and actually listen to our heart. The heart is soft-spoken and easily discouraged. So give it time. Do that thing today that it’s urging you to do.

Go for a walk.

Read a book.

Take a nap.

Do whatever you need to do to listen. I’m going to paint.

Until next time. . .

Read more about Setting an Intention:

*Why Do We Set Intentions in Yoga?

Sankalpa: Going Beyond Resolutions

The Power Behind Setting An Intention In Yoga

December Writing Challenge · Inspirational Musing

Boxing Day Hike

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Today is Boxing Day, a holiday celebrated in Great Britain and most countries that were settled by the English except the United States. Some historians believe it started back in the Middle Age when the servants who had to work on Christmas Day took the next day off. As the servants left to visit their families, their employers would present them with gift boxes. Another theory is that the boxes placed in church to collect coins for the poor were opened and distributed on the day after Christmas. The tradition expanded over the years to include those that rendered any type of service. Now it includes gift giving to tradesman, mail carriers, doormen, porters and others who serve.*

For me, the day after Christmas was another shopping day. We generally went out as a family to shop the after-Christmas sales and to purchase gifts for Matt’s birthday, which is on the 27th. Though Matt would tell you he always got cheated because his birthday was two days after Christmas, that just wasn’t true. I always treated his birthday as a completely different event, never purchasing anything until Christmas was over. So the Brown family tradition was always shopping on Boxing Day. It’s sort of interesting that in Great Britain, today is their Black Friday.

But traditions change as our circumstances change. I had no desire to shop today. In fact, I wasn’t sure I was even going to get dressed and leave the house. I spent most of the day on the sofa reading. I wanted to finish the last fifty pages of my book – The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A brilliant young man that left Newark for the Ivy League – so I could count it in my reading challenge on Goodreads. And even though I knew the outcome because it was clearly stated on the book cover, I felt myself slipping into melancholy as I read the last few pages. And once I was done, I felt the need to write about it but couldn’t find the words. 

Fortunately, my husband invited me to go on a hike. We ventured about a half hour away from our house to Kennesaw Mountain, the highest point in metro Atlanta. 

About five minutes into the hike I began to have second thoughts. It was muddy and wet. Once we passed that, the incline sent both of our hearts racing to the point where conversation was no longer an option. Several times along the way I questioned whether or not the view was even worth it. But we persevered and boy was it worth it. 

   
   

I so enjoyed spending the afternoon in nature. The rocky terrain and fresh air challenged my body and renewed my mind. My husband and I  left park in a fabulous mood.  

Throughout the last 15 months, I’ve been so amazed at how healing nature can be. Though the unseasonably warm weather made it feel like summer today, I hope hiking will become our new Boxing Day tradition. 

Until next time. . .

December Writing Challenge · Inspirational Musing

How do you define fun?

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I don’t feel like writing today. I also don’t feel like Christmas shopping, or wrapping the few gifts I bought yesterday, or going to the grocery store, or cleaning the kitchen, or thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight, or picking up the books and papers from around my office, or reading submissions, or answering emails. I feel a bit like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, all work and no play makes Kim a dull girl.

I need a free day to just have fun. Although, I sometimes struggle with the concept of having fun. Does it have to be playful? Or adventurous? Or a special event? Does it involve laughter and other people? Or can it be quiet and relaxing? I really enjoyed the Star Wars last night, but would I describe that as having fun?

I loved the throw-back aspect of the story and the way they worked the original characters into the story. It felt much like putting on an old comfortable pair of slippers. So I suppose that was definitely fun. But I was troubled by my son’s reaction to the movie. He was disappointed that there wasn’t anything spectacular or different about the way they approached the story. He clearly wouldn’t have described the whole experience as fun. In fact, he likened his feelings about the movie to the way he feels when Michigan State loses a football game. But I don’t think it had anything to do with the movie itself. It probably was one of those unexpected consequences of grief.

Matt was by far the biggest movie buff in our family. His knowledge of movies and directors was nothing short of amazing. A few days ago we were having a discussion about Al Pacino, and I asked what did he get an Oscar for. We looked it up on Google. Matt would have been able to tell us not only the movie, but the director and if that director had won for any other movies**. The was always a big build up for blockbusters like Star Wars, and after the movie he would give a post-movie commentary.

I noticed his absence, too. I always do. Last night when they ran the previews of the next X-men movie, I remembered the way he talked me through the last X-men movie. Memories like that make me smile. And as we left the movie theater, I wondered what he would have thought about the movie.

The more I think about it, I did have fun last night.

Fun doesn’t have to have a ton of excitement and special effects. If you come away from the activity feeling a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment, then it was fun. Truth is every time I finish one of these blogs I come away with a huge sense satisfaction. So maybe writing is fun, too. It’s all in the way you think about it. Of course, cleaning the kitchen or grocery shopping may require a lot more thought.

Until next time. . .

** Al Pacino won best actor in 1993 for Scent of a Woman. The director was Martin Brest, who also directed Meet Joe Black (1998) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984).

Inspirational Musing · Uncategorized

Grown-up Christmas List Part 2

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I’d like to start my Christmas shopping, but don’t have any idea of what to buy anyone. I asked my kids to give me a list of what they want. My son said that’s too easy. Instead he suggested I think about what I would like him to have. The first time I asked my daughter she gave me a list of what she called lame-things-to-get-for-Christmas – a dressy winter coat, ear buds and moccasins with fur (but not UGGs). But then she made it clear that she would be quite disappointed if she received anything off this list. Practical, but not fun. When I asked her a week later for the real list, she replied that she would get back to me.

That was two days ago and still no list.

It’s hard to think up a wish list when you have everything you need and most of what you want. Not to mention the fact that most of our closets and drawers are stuffed to the brim. The overflow moves to the garages, and when that’s full to a storage unit. And as a result, there is more than 2.35 million square feet of self-storage space in the United States, which is equivalent three-times the size of Manhattan island.

Those statistics make the idea of a grown up Christmas list more compelling. The focus would be on the change we’d like to see in the world and/or ourselves.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept and decided I should practice what I preach. So here are the five things I want for Christmas.

  1. I want the food I eat to be an extension of my faith and integrity. It should be honoring to my body. It should come from farms and facilities where the people are treated with dignity and paid a living wage. And the meat should come from farms with husbandry and management practices that promote animal welfare. I’m sure there are those who might argue that eating meat in general doesn’t promote animal welfare, but that’s a debate for another time.
  2. I want walking and yoga to be more than just something I do occasionally. I want it to be the way I live. I want to crave the activity like coffee in the morning. I want those two activities to be my go to for refreshment and renewal.
  3. I want to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness. To see it treated with the same compassion and concern that we treat cancer or other illnesses so that we can give people the help they need.
  4. I want compassion and love to be the driving force between our interactions with one another.
  5. And on a personal note, I want to be a part of book club that deeply discusses books from the point affecting social change.

A bit lofty and difficult to shop for, I know. But writing that list has helped me figure out what to buy.  I might not need a list from my kids after all.

Inspirational Musing

Grown Up Christmas List

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Gloria Steinem’s “The Top Ten Things I Want For Christmas” speech from a BETTY’s holiday show, recently appeared on Huffington Post. Much like the David Letterman Show, it started at her number ten wish and worked its way to the number one. When I clicked on the link I assumed it would be an Oprah-ish list of the hot gift ideas for the season. I’ve been struggling with what to get the people on my list. I was truly looking for ideas. I didn’t know it was written by Gloria Steinem. The first thing on the list was a bit surprising given my expectations:

10. An abject apology from Donald Trump for being a Birther; anti-immigrant; a builder of buildings that look like big Dunhill cigarette lighters; the world’s most punishing source of Green Cards for women who marry him to get one; daring to rate women as no longer Tens when he himself has never been a One; going bankrupt multiple times in order to stick other people with his bad-judgment debt; pretending he ever hit a home run when actually, he was born on Third Base — and oh, yes, setting the hair weave industry all the way back to Rogaine.

Truthfully, the biting tone almost made me close the page, but curiosity got the best of me. And as I read through the list, I wondered what top ten things did I want for Christmas.

Writing Christmas list were easier when we were kids. We hardly even had to think about it. Toy”R”Us sent the catalog directly to our house right after Thanksgiving. All we had to do was transfer the names of the toys from the catalog to our list for Santa. And even as I got older, so many of the things I wanted could be bought.

Not so true anymore. It reminds me of the lyrics from the song “My Grown Up Christmas List.”  So much of our list is not for ourselves, but for our families, our communities, and our world. 

That being said, I think it would be a good exercise to write a grown up Christmas list. Stopping to think about what’s important to us, gives us an opportunity to evaluate how we spend our time and money. It might even lead to new ideas and goals. 

The only thing I want for Christmas, I know I can’t have. My son isn’t coming back to this world. But I am here, and I want to “be the change I wish to see in the world”(*). 

It would be cool if now I went into my Grown Up Christmas list, but there is so much that needs our collective attention that I want to think through what types of things I can do to make a difference.

Looks like I have the subject of another blog.

*The quote is from Mahatma Gandhi

Inspirational Musing

Finding Joy in the Season

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Last year we didn’t put up any Christmas decorations. The general mood of the season was too much for me. The music too cheery. The lights too bright. The shopping too busy. And though I participated in a few Christmas activities, the spirit never hit me. Only a heightened sense of sadness. How could my family ever be normal again? The feeling of holiday joy seemed to die along with my son.

The season wasn’t a complete loss. The pastor of our church had just written an Advent book had a scripture verse and devotional each day through Christmas day. Reading it every day helped to connect me to the real reason for the season, though I still was extremely relieved when it was all over. 

To be honest, I assumed what I experienced last year would be how I felt for the rest of my life. But few months after  Christmas my daughter shared how sad it made her that we didn’t decorate the house for Christmas. I completely understood that it was a preemptive message.

Fortunately,that conversation happened early enough in the year that I didn’t have to think about it. But the closer it got to December, the more I started to worry about things like Christmas stockings. Our original stockings were thin red felt with our names written in a glitter pen. When I bought them twenty something years ago,  I wasn’t thinking long-term. The boys were toddlers, and I figured we’d get nicer ones at some point down the line. When my daughter was born, I bought her one that looked similar to the ones we already had. Family joked for years that hers was bigger than everyone else’s. I intended to buy new velvet stockings with our name embroidered on them, but never got around to it. Now I could never buy new stockings.

Then I worried about Christmas morning. Last year, we decided to go on a cruise at the last-minute so that we wouldn’t have to face Christmas at home without him. But there were no plans for a cruise this year. How would we get through the day?

I began to look at HomeAway and other vacation rental sites to  find somewhere to go close to home. The challenge was finding a location that had activities on Christmas day. Hanging out in a strange place with nothing to do wasn’t going to make the day any easier than sitting at home.

I even tried to find something near Disney World. The kids would be able to hang out at the parks or Downtown Disney if they wanted to. But I couldn’t find anything that worked for us.

We seemed destine to spend Christmas at home. There was no way I getting out of decorating. The thought of decorating was easier to accept once I decided to tune down what my younger son coined “the Christmas bomb”. We’d have a simple tree and that would be it.  

But as fate would have it, that was not to be. A problem with the venue moved my husband’s company holiday party to our house. The plan quickly went from simple to full Christmas tilt.

I thought I could handle it all until we started to put up the first tree. The smell of eggnog and festive music in the background was too reminiscent of previous years. I could almost see Matt sitting on the sofa ribbing his brother as they drank bourbon spiked eggnog. Not a surprise that I found myself in tears. The next few days were really hard.

But even with the sadness I’ve felt the last few days, a thought keeps coming to mind. Matt loved Christmas. Even as an adult, he would be eager to get the decorations up.He never complained about helping. It almost felt as if he was encouraging me to not loss the joy of the season.

At a recent holiday event, the second verse “O, Come, All Ye Faithful” rang louder than ever before:

Sing, choirs of angels,

Sing in exultation;

Sing, all ye citizens of heav’n above!

Glory to God,

Glory in the highest;

DSC_0269_1344Matt is a citizen of heaven. The thought of him celebrating Christmas with the Lord made me smile. And in that moment singing with 4,ooo other women, I felt the Christmas spirit.

It’s only the ninth of December. I still have a lot to get through, not the least of which is his birthday. But I’m feeling hopeful that joy of the season won’t pass me by.

Inspirational Musing

Chasing Waterfalls

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Niagara Falls was my first.

My family took an end-of-summer vacation there in 1974. I remember being excited about trip because my parents had gone for there for their honeymoon. I’m not sure exactly how much I understood about honeymoons at nine years old, but it seemed important. I wanted to stay in the same hotel and go where they went. The falls were secondary. I had no idea that trip would mark the beginning of my love affair with waterfalls.

The magnitude and volume of the Horseshoe Falls, the largest of the three falls that make up Niagara, blew my nine year-old mind. Even now I can’t quite find the words to describe the awe I felt. I would have been content to stand on the observation deck the entire trip. Of course, I was not nearly as thrilled with the behind the falls tour that descend 150 feet behind the falls. The yellow ponchos issued to each tourist hardly seemed adequate protection for 100,000 cubic feet per second flow of water over the falls. The trauma of the tour notwithstanding, seeing Niagara falls for the first time was by far one of the most magical moments in my childhood. So much so that as a parent I couldn’t wait to relive that moment with my own children. But unfortunately, they weren’t as impressed. Millennials!

Nonetheless, Niagara Falls maintained it’s special place in my heart until I discovered this waterfall on a hike near my house.    

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Every time I see it, I take a picture. Consequently, there are tons of photos on my phone and even more on my computer taken with my Canon. No single picture completely captures the beauty of the water tumbling over the edge of cliff. It’s mesmerizing. It easily supplanted Niagara falls as my favorite waterfall. It feels more intimate and personal. 

Last month, my husband and I spent a weekend driving from waterfall to waterfall in Highland, North Carolina. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. At one point, I actually jumped up and down with excitement. I couldn’t’ help but wonder why waterfalls create such a visceral feeling in my soul. Is it the sound of the rushing water? Is it the gentle mist in the air? Or nature that surround it? Or maybe it’s the way I feel when I’m there?

I feel God’s majesty and grace. There is a deep sense of peace. I am one with the flow.

The last pictures I took of my son before he died were at the Roswell Mill waterfall. In one photo, he was stretched out on a rock with his head threw back and the water rushed over him. He seemed at peace. There was no evidence of turmoil he must have felt battling his depression.  

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy amidst the simple beauty of nature. …I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.

-Anne Frank

Recently, while walking along the Chattahoochee river trail, I noticed a little waterfall that I hadn’t ever seen before.

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It lifted my spirits and made me smile. I think TLC got it wrong. We should all chase waterfalls.

 

Inspirational Musing · Quotes

Stop and Listen

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Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him as a guest. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he said. But Martha was distracted with all the preparations she had to make, so she came up to him and said, “Lord, don?t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work alone? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the best part; it will not be taken away from her.

Luke 10:38-42 (NET)

Whenever I hear this story, I tune it out. It reminds me of the mornings when I come downstairs to write only to find a disaster in my kitchen. It’s particularly annoying when I know I specifically instructed one of my children to take care of it the night before. And then there are the times when no one can remember whose week it is so the solutions is just to leave it. My personal favorite is the late night culinary experiments. More cakes get baked at my house between midnight and three a.m. than any other time.

I try to get around the mess by moving a few things to make my morning smoothie, but end up completely cleaning the kitchen. So by the time I finally get to my office to write, I’m fuming. Sometimes, I manage to get over it fairly quickly and can get my writing done. But more often than not, I’m too busy sulking about the fact that no one respects my writing time to get anything done.

So needless to say, I totally get Martha.

But I had an epiphany.

Martha was worried and distracted by many things and Jesus responded by saying only one thing is needed. He made a specific distinction between many things and one thing. I use to think the contemporary version of sitting at the feet of the Lord was to drop everything I was doing, and spend hours studying the Bible in-depth. But that never seemed possible to me because if I did that nothing would ever get done at my house. But fortunately our God is a practical God. He wasn’t suggesting we never do our work. He simply instructs us as to how to accomplish more with less distraction and worry. He says Mary has chosen the best part. She stopped and listened. She focused on one thing.

The Lord speaks in a quiet voice and if we are distracted and worried we won’t be able to hear Him. Maybe the lesson in the story of Martha and Mary is to not get caught up in our distractions, but to spend time with the Lord first so that he can direct our steps.

I tried it recently. I read my devotional and then I asked, “What would you have me do today?” When I got done with my prayer time, it was clear to me that I should spend the day sending off submissions.

The kitchen was a mess, but I ignored it and went straight to my office. I finished up the revision of my short story, sent off six different submissions and wrote out a revision plan for a chapter in my novel. By focusing on one thing at a time I  got much more accomplished. And was less worried and distracted and nicer person to be around.

Take some time today to stop and listen. Your day will go much smoother.