Gems of Inspiration

My thought for today:

A beautiful encounter with yourself.

What could that look like?  Re-connecting with something you love to do, recalling how you've been kind or creative or just plain amazing recently?

Fresh summer brews

I am VERY much in the mood for all things refreshing & cool: Ginger beer, gelato, iced chocolate with melted dark chocolate (yes!),  cool wind on my face, bare feet in the grass. Rejuvenation, flow, release. The things of summertime joy for me.

Honey Lemon Tea is a Blog that focuses on comfort, healthy living, and green beauty ideas:

Honey Lemon Tea a prime choice for those days when you have a sore throat or feel a little under the weather.   It soothes an achy throat, gives you a needed dose of Vitamin C and even if you’re not sick it’s still a comforting treat.   It gives us the perfect blend of flavor, health and sweet nostalgia.  From  www.honeylemontea.com

It's time to switch from hot tea to iced beverages, and I am excited about makinghoney ginger iced tea. I keep cold drinks in a glass pitcher for an invigorating sip!  Ingredients I use: Grated ginger root, a fairly dark local honey, squeeze of fresh lemon. Experiment with the amounts of ginger & sweetness that you prefer.

Happy summer to you!

Anger Umbrella

Uncovering the spokes of anger... I was recently part of a workshop on cultivating curiosity, and thriving in challenging situations related to caregiving.

I appreciated the discussion on Anger Umbrella, a way to conceptualize and understand the process of angry emotions.  Our facilitator Deborah Braun talked about the spoke of an anger umbrella as being those uncomfortable emotions such as:

Embarrassment, feeling undervalued, confused, afraid.... and many more possibilities.  When an interaction or situation stirs up those kind of emotions, they lead us to jab someone with anger. The anger is a reaction to deeper human feelings that are uncomfortable so they are often difficult to sit with.

Another key point that raised my awareness: Anger is a sign that we are needing to make a boundary in order to respect ourselves.

In my words, an angry moment is also an opportunity to honour our needs in some way, and to check in with how we're feeling about a situation or relationship.

So in this regard, anger can inform us of what may need our attention, energy, lovingkindness.

Thank you everyone, for an evening of honest sharing, encouragement and strengthening our emotional tool kit.

There are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.

-Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

A Poetry favourite

Mary Oliver is a beloved poet of mine. I discovered her writing while on a personal retreat, and it was a drink of water to my spirits. Delicious. I so enjoy the way she crafts words with a surprise twist here & there, and how her images enliven the senses...

Philips' Birthday

I gave,
to a friend that I care for deeply,
something that I loved.
It was only a small

extremely shapely bone
that came from the ear
of a whale.
It hurt a little

to give it away.
The next morning
I went out, as usual,
at sunrise,

and there, in the harbour,
was a swan.
I don't know what he or she was doing there,

but the beauty of it
was gift.
Do you see what I mean?
You give, and you are given. 

-Mary Oliver, Evidence

Love letters to self

Love letters from the street:

I was thrilled to find this phrase on a brick wall in my neighbourhood. How delightful that people are creating uplifting public art!  It is a nice complement to a book I've been reading: Brene Brown's Daring Greatly. I am grateful to Brene for her consciousness around vulnerability, and for bringing this concept more into my  awareness. She is transparent about her own process of living with vulnerability, and I feel like this book is offering a way to trail blaze through my own life stories and explore them with curiosity. Or meander through them perhaps:)

This concept of vulnerability offers lots to chew on, and is prompting me to notice the moments when uncomfortable emotions arise for me, and to welcome them as normal aspects of being alive, seeing my own  own unique kind of vulnerability, as well as the common threads shared by others.

I am seeing more fully how  being a courageous, vibrant human being means encountering the layers of vulnerable feelings with a softer gaze.

This quote resonates with me:

The most valuable and important things in my life came to me when I cultivated the courage to be vulnerable, imperfect, and self-compassionate.

What  love letter will you write to yourself today?

-KD