paintedpinkmountains

I recently saw a photo of a seemingly empty storefront with the following statement lettered on the sign above it: What do you do? What could you do? What's stopping you? These are questions I started asking myself daily.  Most often they come out when I'm faced with a challenge.  And it could be any manner of challenge from garden planning, or a knitting project I want to take on to the book I've been writing for longer than I'm willing to admit now.  Answering those questions is a much deeper challenge than actually moving forward with the act of taking on the projects however, for the act of *doing* requires much less energy than the countless hours spent analyzing the questions.  But let's look at the questions, at least for a moment. What do I do?  I sit here staring at this pattern, thinking about how many new-to-me stitches there are in it and I wonder whether I will struggle with learning or figuring them out.  I wonder whether I will ha...

A short few moments ago I was taking some time to quiet my mind.  I had just finished reading  this blog post  and was thinking about how much I could relate to the talk of learning to be calm.  I was thinking about how I am still learning how to act, rationally, with sincere and deep thought, rather than reacting through emotions.  And as the Universe seems to always do, it decided to test me in what it was just trying to teach me. It's moments like this that I am the most thankful for.  At 40 years in, I am constantly aware.  I have never felt so aware in life as I am at this point.  All the situations I find myself faced with, whether they be simple, tough, passing or constant, I am conscious and aware. I see the mirrors placed in front of me daily and I see my own self reflected back at me.  I take that wisdom and I thank the Creator for continuing to remind me of my own humanness. I see the places where I could turn those mirro...

There are multiple versions of this quote, but it seems that the most widely accepted seems to be this one from Hemingway. "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." I've also found this one, from Gene Fowler, "Writing is easy: All you do it sit staring at blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." There are also multiple references to 'popping open a vein' and bleeding.  Regardless, they are all true.  Sometimes I bring about terrible cases of anxiety just by attempting to write. "WHY WHY WHY won't the words just fucking form at the end of this pen (or pencil, or marker, or fingertips) as I type?  I want to write so badly.  Just a moment ago I had a head full of things that were waiting to be written.  Now I'm sitting here staring at this paper/screen and nothing is coming.  Why is nothing coming out?  Where did the words all go?  I'm wasting my time.  I should just do l...

As I work to live more intentionally, one way in which I can always improve is by writing more.  Not only in terms of intentional writing (i.e. the majority of blog posts that include specific topics, or the book(s) that I'm writing) but also in terms of freewriting.  I am working at creating more space to share my views of the world around me, my own direct world, and the thoughts that swirl around in my head at any given moment.  I could carry around a journal and spend more time jotting things down in it than most people spend checking their social media status's. Speaking of.  I'm on my second day without facebook.  I deactivated my account upon hitting my pillow the night of New Years Day.  Yesterday there was an immediate difference in how I navigated my day and it's not much different than getting off sugar. I woke up to my alarm and took my dog out (and didn't post about it on facebook).  I then went back to sleep and thought how nice it wa...

The process of finding my word for 2017 has not been a tough one.  Last year I went through Susannah Conways'  Find Your Word Course  and it brought me to my word for 2016, which was Movement . This year, I came to my word rather easily, as it was thrust in my presence continuously over the past few weeks.  I've read it in blog posts and articles, I've heard it uttered in multiple podcasts, and the word has been spoken by friends in conversation.  The first time it hit me, I knew it would be my guiding word for 2017. Embody . I've been true to my words the past few years.  Allowing them to guide me, and repeating them in my head every time I needed to remind myself to focus.   Movement got me up off my ass on the occasions during 2016 where I felt the laziness settle in.   Movement  has helped me to unclutter areas of my physical and mental space.   Movement helped me change habits and it was the first thing I did January 1st whe...

On December 31, at 11:45, I will be one year free of cigarettes.  There was one evening I had one in my hand, back at the beginning of May I believe, but I never lit it and never would consider it.  I think at that point it was nice to know that I could put one in my hand, look at it, (with a lighter in my pocket as I still need something for incense, candles and such) and just know that I was done with it. There were certainly points of time during the past year that I noticed the space left open by not smoking, but the space was the reward.  The space of not needing to stop what I was doing at any given time to take a break and go smoke.  If you are a 10 cigarette a day smoker, that adds up to 100 minutes or more a day.  And what can one do with 100 minutes in a day?  Granted, there are things that one can do while smoking, but considering I never smoked in my house or around my kids, the act of smoking was always something that required time "away" fro...

As the year begins its' journey into becoming the past, I am beginning my own journey, as I always do at this time, further into myself.  The autumn always greets me with an invitation to dive deeper into the metaphorical waters to continue the search for more.  To search for more.  Because there is always more. To look at where I need to make changes. Because there is always room for improvement. To hold space for what the year has given me.  Because there are always gifts, even in a year that has held many challenges and grief-stricken moments for many people.  My 2016 was 2009, but as an empath I feel it all anyway, so there are always moments of holding space for others in my life. It's not the prospect of a new year, in and of itself, that creates this force in me.  While I do enjoy the idea of a clear, blank page in front of me, it's the whole season itself.  The darkness outside that invites me into my own darkness inside.  T...