Tag Archives: Happiness

Dec 13 2012
4 Comments
Family, Home, Life

It Won’t Be Long Before Another Day…

I remember being three or four years old. My mom would turn on my little cassette of lullabies and lie down next to me until I fell asleep each afternoon, the curtains drawn, darkness tricking me into a nap. Snuggled up to my mom, I felt loved, safe. The feeling is so real, even twenty-five years later, I can still see the light hitting the back of those curtains, feel the warmth of her arms holding onto me, hear her voice gently singing me to sleep.

Time is a funny thing. I can reach back and touch that memory even though thousands of others have slipped by unnoticed. Makes me wonder what I will hold onto from now.

Tonight, I share a little piece of me from twenty-five years ago, a song I caught myself singing while I made dinner tonight. As a kid, I swore it was written for me and my mom. Now, it means even more. A time capsule from the past. 

Tagged , , , , ,
Dec 11 2012
7 Comments
Dogs, Health, Home, Life, Teaching, Writing

Make Today Matter

Baby, it’s cold outside…

It’s that time of year. It’s hard to get out of bed. 6AM in chilly darkness is torture. I’m tired and grumpy, the first one awake. The dog moves seamlessly into my spot as soon as my feet hit the carpet. I’ve never been so jealous of a ball of fur.

This week I realized I need to reframe how I see the world in the morning. My plan of attack, three words taped to my mirror.

Make Today Matter

I may not win any decorating awards with this choice, but I’m hoping it will remind me to begin my day with a little positive reflection. Heck, I have notes everywhere else– the kitchen, my computer, my desk, my lunch bag… About time I put a note the first place I look each morning.

Tagged , ,
Nov 29 2012
7 Comments
Family, Health, Home, Life, Teaching, Writing

Becoming vs. Being

This evening after work, I sat on my kitchen counter and ate cranberry bread. It’s one of my bad habits. The counter, not the bread. While I ate my snack like a small child, two things caught my attention.

First, this note on my fridge. I wrote it a month or so ago in one of my more frustrated moments. Today, it made me realize that I am always trying to become something else. First I was a college kid wanting to become an adult, then an analyst hoping to become a teacher, and now a teacher wishing to become a novelist. It hit me, when I am I ever just going to be?

That’s when my eyes were drawn to my bookshelf that is messily filled with too many things. All those eclectic books and pictures are my life. Each title and each smiling face a different part of me. Another metaphor staring me in the face. A life that is already enough if I stop to pay attention.

Maybe bookshelves are the real windows to the soul…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to stop working toward that goal on the fridge, but I also need to recognize that even if I already were a full-time novelist, there would always be something else to become. If we don’t stop to be, life will pass us by…

Lately I have slowed things down, which means a more gradual approach to this becoming business. In some ways, this is hard because it feels like I am accomplishing a lot less. In others, it is allowing me to be the more balanced person I have already worked so hard to become.

Are you good at being? Tonight I am collecting secrets.

Tagged , ,
Nov 25 2012
6 Comments
Health, Life

Sunday Song: Pain vs. Discomfort

Today my focus is on the difference between pain and discomfort. In yoga, most instructors will remind you that discomfort is a place to grow, pain is a place to stop. When we experience true pain, our bodies are telling us something needs to change. Discomfort, on the other hand, provides opportunities for us to become stronger as we explore this space. I have probably heard this at least a hundred times, but only this weekend has it started to make sense.

About two months ago I embarked on a journey to heal myself naturally. There is nothing horribly wrong with me, just a “condition” that results in what I have always considered to be reoccurring pain. The only thing doctors could offer me were pain killers, so, as soon as the discomfort began, I would medicate as not to disrupt my normal routines and to save myself from what I considered to be suffering.

What I discovered as I began my natural treatment was that true healing is hard work. I now understand why many people give up on natural remedies as the healing takes weeks, months, maybe even years of consistent effort. In addition to changing my diet, taking various flower essences, and drinking herbal teas, I have had to spend 30+ minutes a day, most days of the week, applying castor oil packs. Setting aside this time has been hard work. It has also been an extreme blessing because it has forced me to slow down my busy evenings.

Fast forward to today. As the familiar discomfort set into my body, I braced myself for pain. Last time, I refused pain killers, intent to fully feel what it was like before doing all the hard work to heal myself. This time, it is already different. I am uncomfortable, yes, but so far I have not experienced any real pain. Even if I soon eat my words, I will feel like I have made progress because I have created a space to grow within the discomfort. I have also come to recognize the difference between discomfort and pain, an amazingly powerful distinction in the mind.

I leave you with a Sunday Song about pain. Maybe not exactly the same kind of pain I wrote about, but a powerful song and a challenge presented by a family member to include in today’s blog entry. Ironically, it rather fits even though I forgot about the challenge until the end of this post. Love it when everything comes together, even imperfectly.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
Nov 24 2012
11 Comments
Health, Home, Life, Pets

Yoga Cat & Other Obstacles

Despite my best intentions, life has felt challenging lately. Even home yoga. I would like to introduce you to yoga cat. She is nothing like yoga dog, who stops by, stretches, wags his tail, and then moves on. Yoga cat likes to be in the way, the entire time. Every day since I decided to take my home yoga practice more seriously, she has been on my mat from start to finish. I have done locust poses at odd angles, tree balanced precariously over an outstretched cat, warrior with my hand a dangling invitation for her to take a good swat, and seated meditation with a purring ball of fur pressed against my legs.

Like many obstacles, she is part joyous distraction, part menace.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why not just move her? But, that’s the thing. First, she’s not an easy creature to move. My husband and I joke that she’s half ferrel. She does what she pleases unless you’re willing to risk an altercation. Second, I have tried to view her as an added challenge to clearing my mind and focusing inward. If I work hard enough, I can tune her out, even if every once in awhile I receive an unexpected slap of her paw or have to move some of my poses to the carpet.

Luna is perfectly in the way.

I actually think yoga cat is a good metaphor for life. Anything worth doing is going to have obstacles. You can either put in the work anyway or switch your attention elsewhere. I am pretty sure if I pulled out a different mat she would just follow me to a new location. I have to remind myself this as I push through obstacles in other parts of my life. Even if I switched directions, there would be something else. Thankfully, meditation, yoga, blogging, reading all help. And, doing yoga over a cat might just be part of the fun.

Tagged , , , , ,
Nov 21 2012
14 Comments
Health, Life, Teaching

My New Experiment: Develop a Spiritual Practice

In the past few months, one question has resurfaced again and again. How can I sustain my current responsibilities without burning out? There are moments when I am able to transcend stress and remain amazingly calm. Then, there are other moments, when I cannot help but absorb the energy around me. Those days, I go home searching for peace. The answer I keep receiving, develop a spiritual practice to move into a more consistently balanced space.

Now, I get that the word spiritual can be a big turnoff for many. It is hard to separate the word from religious traditions that may not be our own. But, whether you’re agnostic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or even atheist, creating a spiritual practice can be beneficial and does not have to be about one path to God. Instead, it is about quieting the mind and connecting with what is important. This in itself is not new. I just did not know where to start, until I found two books at my mom’s house this week.

The first, Mindfulness Yoga inspired me to connect my yoga practice with Eastern philosophy and meditation. The second, The Spiritual Activist, focuses on helping activists of all faiths, including teachers, establish spiritual practices to sustain their social work. While Mindfulness Yoga is great for establishing home yoga routines and understanding the philosophical background of meditation, it is dense material. The Spiritual Activist, on the other hand, makes it easy to form a plan of action. Together they make an inspiring duo. Exactly what I was seeking.

My new plan, create a daily spiritual practice that interchanges yoga, meditation, walking, and reading. Even though I already do these things, the goal is to set aside a regular time each day to quiet my mind. At first I considered waking up earlier, but I read it is better not to alter your normal wake/sleep patterns because you are less likely to succeed in establishing new habits when your sleep cycle is changed. So, instead, I plan to begin each evening with silence and spiritual practice when I get home from work.

I know this will be a big experiment, especially since I have never meditated regularly, but I hope to monitor my progress and share whether or not it makes a difference in my stress levels, particularly in the most challenging moments while I teach. I do not expect it to work instant miracles, but I also am hopeful that it will help me access the calm that already exists inside me.

I leave you with one piece of wisdom, known as Bodhichitta. In order to achieve true good for ourselves, we must aim to achieve good for all beings. This is a big part of my calling as a teacher. I teach not only to fulfill myself, but also to make the lives of my students better, which in turn improves our community. So, what I do to make myself a more balanced teacher, I do not just for me, but for my students, and all beings.

If you’re open to sharing, do you have a daily spiritual practice? If so, what does it consist of for you? How has it benefited your life?

Tagged , , , ,
Nov 17 2012
12 Comments
Family, Life, Teaching, Writing

Patience is a difficult lesson

I remember hearing once that we are presented with the same lesson over and over until we really get it. If this is true, my current lesson is definitely related to patience and progress. Maybe that’s what I get for questioning the old saying, patience is a virtue. I still stand by the idea that sometimes it’s good not to be patient. However, this season of my life seems to be all about patience. Patience with my writing, patience with my teaching, patience with myself.

My love for writing has not waned, but my belief in myself wavers all the time. The description of my book is an eternal work in progress. I tweak a little here, a little there, a little better throughout time, but still not what it needs to be. Expecting Happiness also deserves a revisit with what I have learned in the past couple months. Naga (my NaNoWriMo project) was off to a good start but now I’m questioning whether my foray into fantasy was just that, a temporary adventure. I get that every word is progress, it just feels unbearably slow sometimes.

Teaching. Is. Hard. I was telling Alex last night that I feel like a big part of my job is improv. Sure I plan my lessons, but when it comes down to it, no script is ever going to work. Real life is messy. Kids are messy. Their ingenious questions redirect my plans all the time. Yes I’m getting better, but teaching is not something you just work hard at and then are instantly great. In fact, it was the first thing in my life where the correlation between hard work and success wasn’t immediate. Then you add in a pilot teacher evaluation system where I am graded on rubric after rubric and I start to feel a little less than stellar. I know it will pay off, but the progress is much slower than I’d like.

Me. Patience with myself is harder to define here, open to the world. There are just certain aspects of my life that I expected to be different by 30. No, 30 isn’t here, but it feels like it’s knocking on my door.

The lesson in all of this, progress takes time, little by little, bit by bit, day by day, hour by hour… The important part is continuing to put in the work that will eventually get me wherever it is I am headed. But here’s the best part. Thanks to this blog, I don’t feel alone in this. From my heart, I appreciate each and every one of you that is accompanying me on this sometimes slow journey, from friends and family in real life to friends on the other side of a computer screen. Thank you.

Tagged , , , , ,
Nov 01 2012
19 Comments
Life, Writing

Thankfulness Thursday: Passion

Tonight I wrote 898 words. 25,000 is my NaNoWriMo goal.

Half as much as everyone else, but that’s okay. Between late afternoon IEP meetings, apple donations, birthdays, weddings, life, that’s about as much as I can handle.

Last year I reached 22,222. Still an accomplishment. The beginning of my first book.

This year something completely different. For now, forget mainstream, commercial fiction, (unless of course you want to pay me for it). This time a novel that at the moment has no genre. We’ll see where it ends up. Tonight, just two lost souls on a rugged Oregon beach. Tomorrow, one might be a vagabond exploring the Pacific Northwest, the other a dark mermaid. Maybe not. That’s the beauty of NaNoWriMo, it’s unpredictable.

Reminds me of ninjas. All good NaNoWriMo novels have a random ninja somewhere, or at least that is what I have been told. The official welcome letter I read to my students even mentioned ninjas. When I explained that the common NaNoWriMo wisdom is to just add a ninja when you get stuck, they grinned. My last book had a ninja. Or at least a misunderstood joke about a ninja…

So here’s to all the unexpected ninjas this month might bring and to the reminder that starting something new can be fun. Tonight I’m thankful for my passion to write because it takes me on new adventures from the comfort of my couch, with my dog asleep on my left foot and my cat sprawled across my lap, her paw on the keyboard. Doesn’t get much better than this, or at least not for me.

This year’s inspiration from Bandon, OR… If only I could write from here…

***

Link up for Thankfulness Thursday @ Domestic Fashionista.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Oct 25 2012
14 Comments
Family, Home, Life, Teaching, Writing

Thankfulness Thursday: Who do you choose to be?

Part of whatever it is that is happening right now is that I’m learning to be me. We live in an age of extended adolescence. In my case, adulthood is starting at age 29. And, I don’t mean this in a time to buy a minivan kind of way, (no offense to the lovely twenty-something minivan drivers in my life). Instead, I mean this as I’m finally starting to figure out who the heck I am.

I’m a teacher, a wife, a daughter, a friend, a writer, an occasional traveler. I’m each of these things because I choose to be, not because I think I should or always will be, (although I hope to be most of these things all my life). I am incredibly grateful to be in the exact place I am right now, even though it is hard and even though I want some things to change. I think that’s the big difference. I used to fight life, to fight all the parts that were hard or not perfect.

Now I see it as part of a general movement in the right direction. I look back five years, things are better despite the bumps along the way. I am optimistic the same trend will continue with faith and a lot of hard work. I’ve got the hard work part down, so really it’s just a matter of maintaining a positive outlook and enjoying the journey, bumps and all.

So, what does it mean to be me today?

It means I write what vibrates in my bones, popular or not. It means mermaids for NaNoWriMo, even if practically every agent on the planet currently claims to hate mermaids. It means yoga in my living room and a make-shift altar on my coffee table. It means Sunday night dinners with my family, coffee dates in sundresses with my best friends, Wednesday nights in my pajamas watching TV with my husband. It means teaching in a way that leaves my heart aching.

I am part hippie, part hipster, part bohemian, part yuppie, part vegetarian-in-training.

As silly as it sounds, today I’m grateful to be me because it took me a very long time to get what that means, even if who I am is still an evolving mess of ideals and dreams. Maybe I’ll always be this way, but that’s alright, I’m starting to get that the labels and the knowing and the destinations aren’t the point.

***

Link up for Thankfulness Thursday @ Domestic Fashionista.

Tagged , , , , ,
Oct 24 2012
9 Comments
Life

Cozy little blue vest.

Autumn storms in Sacramento mean chilly evenings, (you know, chilly by California, non-snowy standards).

Enter my beloved North Face down vest.

There are two things you should know. One, I have very stylish friends. Two, I’m not nearly as stylish. But, my love for this puffy, blue sleeping-bag-of-a-vest has nothing to do with style. It’s all about how it makes me feel. Warm, safe, happy.

You can ask my family. They’re likely to see me in this all winter long, (plus whatever I can get away with in fall and spring too). If I were a character in your novel, you would have to include it. I have an odd attachment to this puffy pillow of a vest that I received for Christmas last year. So odd and so strong I had to blog about it. That and I had to lighten the mood. Been a little serious lately.

Do you also have an adult safety blanket, or is it just me?

Did I mention half the teachers I know own one of these things? Wearing mine right now…

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Oct 23 2012
14 Comments
Health, Life

Everything is a miracle.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-Albert Einstein

I came across this quote a couple weeks ago and let it sit in my document of random thoughts. It’s hard to always live your life as though everything is a miracle. Driving home from my mom’s house a couple weeks ago, I did. Even the trash blowing down the side of the freeway in the autumn sunset was somehow beautiful, the rain on my dirty windshield meaningful.

I’m slowly learning to live this way more often. It requires conscious thought, work, and desire. However, when achieved, everything starts to make a little more sense. Everything is more alive. I have always had little mantras for those moments I most need them. Today is the best day of my life was one for an entire summer. Now they change more frequently. Last week, my students are a gift. Yesterday, you are safe. Today, everything is a miracle.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Oct 18 2012
8 Comments
Life, Teaching

Thankfulness Thursday: School

Sunday I was dreading coming back to work. A week and a half off. Freedom to write, see friends and family, relax. As much as I love my breaks, they create this dichotomy between two worlds, teaching and freedom.  The teaching world is generally just dandy when I’m in the routine and well-rested, but the freedom world makes it really hard to go back for the first few days.

So, I geared up. I reminded myself that no matter how challenging my job may be, my students are a gift. Our time together is a gift. I am so lucky to have them in my life, constantly sharing beautiful little moments with me. I wrote this on my refrigerator, I repeated this to myself all week, they are a gift, they are a gift, they are a gift.

Sometimes, I have to trick myself into positivity.

This week it worked. I also told myself that I’d spend the week looking for things about my job to be thankful for in this very post because I knew it would be a hard week readjusting. And, magic! Knowing I was looking for moments to be grateful for kept me mostly grounded and positive all week, even as my very own Maniac Magee went on one of his wildest day-long adventures yet, (among other very exciting and/or horrifying moments, depending how you look at them).

Lesson of the week: If you’re looking for something to be thankful for, you’ll find it.

1. I actually had fun planning AND teaching my Nanowrimo and water cycle lessons this week. Turns out when you like what you teach, you’re happier!

Funny how I never much liked science as a kid, but now I geek out on teaching it!

2. Even Maniac Magee, (as his name will remain this week), amused me with his antics instead of digging under my skin with his misbehavior. I took it lightly, which helped. And, the fact that he somehow ended up lying on my classroom floor after school, blown over in the wake of his own hurricane, made me smile.

3. Smiles. I missed my students over break, more than I realized. The smiles on their faces when they saw me Monday morning told me they missed me too. This warmed my heart enough to part with my beloved freedom and keep it positive this week.

Today, I’m thankful for the mixed blessing that is my day job, teaching.

***

Join the Thankfulness Thursday link-up over at Domestic Fashionista!

Tagged ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →