Receiving

“It’s so very hard, receiving. When you give something, you’re in much greater control. But when you receive something, you’re so vulnerable.”

The Mister Rogers No One Saw, By Jeanne Marie Laskas

Hurt Travels Through Time

By one of my favorite poets in Instagram: Yung Pueblo.

The Good Wolf

A member of the community goes to an elder: “I am trying to find my way, but I am struggling with the path and within myself.” The elder explains, “Inside each of us, there are two wolves which fight all the time. One of them is the good wolf which represents love, peace, hope, kindness, bravery and compassion. The other is the bad wolf, which represents greed, anger, arrogance, resentment and fear. And these two wolves fight all the time.” The member of the community reflects and asks, “If these two fight all the time, then which one wins?” The elder shares, “whichever one you feed.”

Cherokee First Nation Origin

I am “A Too Much” Woman

“There she is. . . the “too much” woman. The one who loves too hard, feels too deeply, asks too often, desires too much.

There she is taking up too much space, with her laughter, her curves, her honesty, her sexuality. Her presence is as tall as a tree, as wide as a mountain. Her energy occupies every crevice of the room. Too much space she takes.

There she is causing a ruckus with her persistent wanting, too much wanting. She desires a lot, wants everything—too much happiness, too much alone time, too much pleasure. She’ll go through brimstone, murky river, and hellfire to get it. She’ll risk all to quell the longings of her heart and body. This makes her dangerous.

She is dangerous.

And there she goes, that “too much” woman, making people think too much, feel too much, swoon too much. She with her authentic prose and a self-assuredness in the way she carries herself. She with her belly laughs and her insatiable appetite and her proneness to fiery passion. All eyes on her, thinking she’s hot shit.

Oh, that “too much” woman. . . too loud, too vibrant, too honest, too emotional, too smart, too intense, too pretty, too difficult, too sensitive, too wild, too intimidating, too successful, too fat, too strong, too political, too joyous, too needy—too much.

She should simmer down a bit, be taken down a couple notches. Someone should put her back in a more respectable place. Someone should tell her.

Here I am. . . a Too Much Woman, with my too-tender heart and my too-much emotions.
A hedonist, feminist, pleasure seeker, empath. I want a lot—justice, sincerity, spaciousness, ease, intimacy, actualization, respect, to be seen, to be understood, your undivided attention, and all of your promises to be kept.

I’ve been called high maintenance because I want what I want, and intimidating because of the space I occupy. I’ve been called selfish because I am self-loving. I’ve been called a witch because I know how to heal myself.

And still. . . I rise.”

— Ev’Yan Whitney

Design Matters: Malcolm Gladwell

In this Design Matters episode Malcolm Gladwell discusses his new book, “Talking to Strangers”—and how we default to truth … but not necessarily the whole truth.

No one does interviews better than Debbie Millman. No one.

The Cost of Being Wrong

“The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.”
— Seth Godin

Virtual Choir

Composer Eric Whitacre started the Virtual Choir; an experiment that connects singers from every corner of the globe. What a moving experiment. Love everything about this.

A Definition of Love by Esther Perel

“It’s a verb. It’s an active engagement with all kinds of feelings—positive ones and primitive ones and loathsome ones. But it’s a very active verb. And it’s often surprising how it can kind of ebb and flow. It’s like the moon. We think it’s disappeared, and suddenly it shows up again. It’s not a permanent state of enthusiasm.”

Full article: Love is not a permanent state of enthusiasm

Forgive, Forgive, Forgive

“In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again. The richest relationships are lifeboats, but they are also submarines that descend to the darkest and most disquieting places, to the unfathomed trenches of the soul where our deepest shames and foibles and vulnerabilities live, where we are less than we would like to be. Forgiveness is the alchemy by which the shame transforms into the honor and privilege of being invited into another’s darkness and having them witness your own with the undimmed light of love, of sympathy, of nonjudgmental understanding. Forgiveness is the engine of buoyancy that keeps the submarine rising again and again toward the light, so that it may become a lifeboat once more.”

13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings. Happy blog-birthday Maria!

Attention

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
— Henry Miller

Evidence of What You Are

“What you are living is the evidence of what you are thinking and feeling every single time.”
— Abraham Hicks

Teach Them All The Things

“Instead of buying your children all the things you never had, you should teach them all the things you were never taught. Material wears out but knowledge stays.”
— Bruce Lee

How Do We Encourage Reflection?

In the End

“In the end,
we will conserve only what we love,
we will love only what we understand,
and we will understand
only what we are taught.”
— baba dioum

(via)

Researching a Travel Destination?

CreativeMornings Job Board

This week I interviewed two *delightful* humans for a designer position at Tattly that found the job listing through the CreativeMornings job board. The thought that my team and I built a job board that attracts talented and big hearted humans makes my heart explode.

The job board is global and you can filter by all commitment levels, meaning, full time, part time, contract, freelance and even internships. You can post unlimited jobs with an affordable membership to the CreativeGuild, the global directory of companies, professionals and jobs, run by CreativeMornings.

Trust

“The best way to find out if you can trust someone is to trust them.”
— Ernest Hemingway

On Holding Space for Another Person?

“What does it mean to hold space for another person? It means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgment and control.”
— Heather Plett

Lost in a Rational World

SLOMO from Josh Izenberg on Vimeo.

Disillusioned with his life, Dr. John Kitchin abandons his career as a neurologist and moves to Pacific Beach. There, he undergoes a radical transformation into SLOMO, trading his lab coat for a pair of rollerblades and his IRA for a taste of divinity.

I like SLOMO. The world would be a better place if we paid more attention to what lights us up and follow that. Wholeheartedly follow that.

(via Bailey)

You Have To Rise

“Everything you have ever dreamed of having is being held in trust for you until you are at the level in which you are ready to receive it. You have to rise. You have to become the kind of person who deserves the life you want.”
— Brianna Wiest

Break The Rules

“By all means break the rules, and break them beautifully, deliberately, and well.”
— Robert Bringhurst

True Success

“What if we measured true success not by the amount of money you have but by the amount of human energy you unlock, the amount of potential you enable? If that were our metric, our world would be a different place.”
— Jacqueline Novogratz

How To Write by Elizabeth Gilbert

1) Tell your story TO someone. Pick one person you love or admire or want to connect with, and write the whole thing directly to them —like you’re writing a letter. This will bring forth your natural voice. Whatever you do, do NOT write to a demographic. Ugh.

2) Start at the beginning of the story, write what happened, and keep going until you get to the end.

3) Use radically simple sentences.

4) Don’t worry if it’s good; just finish it. Whether or not your project is good, you’ll be a different person at the end of it, and that’s always worth doing.

5) Don’t write with the aim of changing anybody’s life. That will lead to heavy, irritating prose. Just share what delights or enrages or fascinates you. If somebody’s life is changed by it, that’s a bonus.

6) Whenever you can, tell stories instead of explaining stuff. Humans love stories, and we hate having stuff explained to us. Use Jesus as an example: He spoke almost exclusively in parables, and allowed everybody to draw their own lessons from his great storytelling. And he did very well.

7) Your work doesn’t have to be any particular length, or written for any particular market. It doesn’t have to even be seen by another human being. How and if to publish your work is a problem for another day. For today, just write.

8) Remember that you’ve been doing research your whole life, merely by existing. You are the only expert in your own experience. Embrace this as your supreme qualification.

9) Every writer starts in the same place on Day One: Super excited, and ready for greatness. On Day Two, every writer looks at what she wrote on Day One and hates herself. What separates working writers from non-working writers is that working writers return to their task on Day Three. What gets you there is not pride but mercy. Show yourself forgiveness, for not being good enough. Then keep going.

10) Be willing to let it be easy. You might be surprised.

— Elizabeth Gilbert

Reasons To Be Cheerful

David Byrne started a magazine called Reasons To Be Cheerful in which he and his team tell stories that reveal that there are, in fact, a surprising number of reasons to feel cheerful. Many of these reasons come in the form of smart, proven, replicable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Reasons to be Cheerful is here to tell you about some of them. Through sharp reporting, their stories balance a sense of healthy optimism with journalistic rigor, and find cause for hope. It is part magazine, part therapy session, part blueprint for a better world.

I love EVERYTHING about this.