Ah Do Do Do, Ah Da Da Da, S’all I Want to Say to You

Am I doing it right?

I dunno.

Am I doing it anyway, Yup!

This week is filled with anticipation of Autumn and all the cleaning and doing projects that seem to accompany the break in hot weather. Home and garden maintenance and cleaning. The windows look horrid. The bought potted perennials need planting. Things need painting.

The littlest child is returning to school on Thursday. Seems no one died from the virus this week in Maryland. She will be masked and I will be driving her to school. But it gives me some hope that this will all be a nightmare sooner than later. I need that space and time back in my days. She needs the connection with her people.

Mark and my wedding anniversary is today. We’ll hope to celebrate it this weekend. And then his birthday is coming. So much to be grateful for in these weird times.

I’ve been doing better with an anxiety med adjustment and am hoping to have great things come to fruition before the new year. There’s a bump I need to get over.

I am happily redecorating and replacing some pieces with new inexpensive finds and feel that this season will reflect a lot of positive change for all of us.

We just have to plant the seeds of hope.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Reframe Your Slow: By Choice or By Force ?

Two women I know from my online community, and for whom I have great respect, both spoke in their newsletters about how they felt twitchy about feeling slowed down and awaiting things. The global trend to embrace the slow life as a way of living sounds so lovely but it’s a whole other thing to feel forced to slow down. Anna Lovind, the teacher of my Creative Doer course, said,

“I find it incredibly frustrating to not be able to create swift change the way I’m used to. But maybe slow is what I can handle right now”.

To have children who’s needs you have to negotiate and to be in search of a new home are real stress factors that she and many people have to deal with on top of global pandemic problems. Honoring where we are will help us move on.

Michelle GD of Michellegd.com was speaking about impatiently awaiting her cosmos flowers to bloom. And when they finally did, she pondered,

“I feel like there’s some kind of message for me, tucked into these late-blooming cosmos. Some message about allowing for surprises, or maybe a message about being patient. Though what if the feathery cosmos stalks hadn’t ever bloomed?? Well, I think the message would be the same: allowing for surprises, or maybe being patient. Also, maybe there isn’t a message.”

The messages are what we translate them to be. And if deep down we wish for more patience and more space to think and create, we need to honor that. That might be slowing down we need to do for ourselves that has nothing to do with the outside world. This whisper may speak to honoring our being instead of our doing.

Michelle ended her newsletter with this quote,

“Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.” –Alice Walker–

Expectations will mess with you every time. But there’s one thing I have discovered from my slowed down life: you have to plant the seed for the idea or project or plant to grow. It may grow on it’s own terms but it needs to be started and nurtured. Life is born of intention.

You have to plant the seed and nurture it with hope for it to grow at all.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Stay Strong and Let it Be OKay to Not Be OKay

At the bank today, I overheard a woman say “Stay Strong” and I said, “I prefer that to’stay safe’.” The teller said that the woman who said that was starting a campaign to promote mental health awareness and depression support through this time. And I said, “I can totally support that. I’m spreading Stay Strong”.

I am definitely affected by the weather, by my bodily and hormonal cycles, and by what I’ve heard or what has happened to me today. Some days I have the energy and some days I just don’t. It needs to be Okay to just not have it in me to do anything but read or sleep or go for a walk.

If I do not refill my well, I will not be able to take care of the others in my life. Taking care of these others is one of my number one jobs on this earth. But so is taking care of myself. I will do a lousy job of it if I am not at my best, if I don’t know that I have my own back.

I am not the sort of person to be able to post daily quotes of inspiration. And I don’t always write in my journal to ground myself daily. But I do know that if it hurts, physically or mentally, I need help to make it stop hurting. And that absolutely everyone on the planet has fear. It’s how we deal with it that dignifies and honors us.

Tell anyone that you know, including yourself, that they are entitled to hurt and to be heard. And tell them to Stay Strong and that you are there as part of this strength. Compassion to all of us in this time of confusion and strain.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

How My Feelings Freak You Out and What to Do About It

As you know, I truly disregard other’s judgment of my expression of feelings here. This space has always held safety for me. Even when I’ve been attacked, I still know that I am entitled to be honest about me. I sometimes think I should be more so.

And what I’ve come to realize is that not only do people truly not understand that it’s Okay to be not Okay, they think that my expression of self-doubt or fear to be me is somehow a reflection of instability. After all, who thinks this is Okay?

I Do.

In fact, if we were all to admit our self-doubts, our humanity more to one another without assuming that person is funny farm material, we might get to route of some of our problems more quickly. But instead, people are horrified at my humanity. It must mean something awful has happened to me.

Am I considering self-harm? Bahahaha hahahaha! I have never gone there and don’t plan to. Or maybe my anxieties just play into others’ anxieties and they can’t read what I write without being triggered into anxiety. I get that. Maybe my husband has driven me to it? He’s the funniest kindest man I’ve ever met so, no.

I find it sad that we are so clammed up with our feelings that we can’t even recognize and value honesty as just that. If we find compassion for one another and our expression of pain, it may help us find compassion for our own pain. That’s apparently not an option. But I wish it was. So I’ll continue to confess my feelings. And your choice of how to respond is yours to do what you want.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.

Know That You Are Necessary

One can’t create the life one wants without envisioning its form first. But knowing that you are necessary to this world, that your gifts, stories, and laughter are necessary, the journey can not even begin without knowing these absolutes.

I named the life that i want to live ‘Creative Soul Living’. Yet l often forget that l even dreamed that commitment. The mirrors of self-worth l was missing in my childhood often prevent me from seeing my worth to the world today. My fight is often simply to remember.

And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.

And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.