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July 2010 State-of-the-Household Letter
(Journal/Journal)
... laugh, tell him your plans.” If you’ve been checking in with my blog, you know that things have not gone as planned—surprise! In fact, in the first month of the sabbatical, I had to start adjusting ...
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Remorse, TN
(My Writing/Poetry)
... eczema. Worse sex. Worse enmity from people who don’t know me. Where was I to hide from those relentless eye, those probing fingers, pushing their way into my waist, tisking at my frailness, ...
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Where Do Prompts Come From?
(Twelve Doors/Twelve Doors)
... “I don't know,” I said, “but they just keep coming.” But of course I do know where writing prompts come from: they come out of my life. Almost all of them. Now I may be revealing more than I should here, ...
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May 2010 Reading
(Influences/Influences)
... ten thousand desperate distractions, no matter how calm and tidy my surfaces appeared.” “I quit trying to know and began trying to be.” “ . . . a friend cracked open the shell in which I had been ...
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Misguided Yogi
(Lessons from the Mat/Lessons from the Mat)
... I’ve always had a private set of standards that I felt obligated to uphold. In spite of knowing I should “be here, now” in my practice, I have unconsciously sought a goal, a beautiful point in the future ...
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Live Life Beyond Words
(Sabbatical/Sabbatical)
I know of no single thing more conducive to great harm than the unrestrained mind. – the Buddha I’m wondering if I need to stop reading for a while. Every day for the last twenty years or ...
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Lean in to the Difficulty
(Influences/Influences)
... and really afraid, I know I’m not going to be very good.” And then, confused and afraid, he writes anyway! So when things get tough in the writing, face the dragon and ask him what he wants. Instead ...
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Dispatched
(Sabbatical/Sabbatical)
... I'm paying attention. There are issues in life—our life lessons—that simply will not be dispatched. Pema Chodron says, “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” And ...
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Can You Wiggle Your Toes?
(Journal/Journal)
... disappearing before my eyes. Three months of sabbatical left, and I cannot move. I can hardly bear it. This is not the way I saw my life going. But of course, I know from the teachings that every ...
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April 2010 Reading
(Influences/Influences)
... and manipulate.” I highlight ideas of a text that resonate with me, and this book is almost completely yellow! But this idea really says it all. Getting to know the mind and how it enslaves us is the ...
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In This New Space
(Journal/Journal)
After I broke my foot, Marcie called to say she had dreamed about me. She knows more than most how frustrated I am with my shift in life circumstance, and she wanted to offer four questions for ...
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A New Kind of Balance
(Journal/Journal)
... trapped in this house and expending enormous energy just getting to the bathroom. Abraham Maslow is known for his articulation of hierarchy of needs that drive human behavior. The most basic need ...
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Precepts for the Evolutionary Teacher
(Sabbatical/Sabbatical)
... of a teacher’s knowledge. 9. Every human being is passionately interested in answering the big questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What am I to do with my life? 10. We can help answer these questions ...
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Devotion to the Practice
(Journal/Journal)
... knowledgeable and skilled by virtue of our own real experience with our practice. 2. Daily meditation. Silence is the way to cut through the conditioned responses of the reactive mind, and to clear ...
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Pop
(Journal/Journal)
... into the yard was helping me feel full, confident, happy, hopeful in so many ways. And the biggest way was in the confidence I was gaining in knowing my body, in being grounded in my practice, in the ...
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The Right Tool for the Right Job
(Sabbatical/Sabbatical)
... to arise. It’s called Breathe, Move, Write, and I’d love to have you join me to learn how it works. You’ll learn a very simple sequence of yoga movements (you do not need to know anything about yoga ...
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What is Your Dharma This Year?
(Sabbatical/Sabbatical)
... in the writer’s ability to write her way to new understandings, new insights about human nature. Her prompts lead writers to revelations about themselves and their characters, and she lets them know that ...
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Adore
(My Writing/Poetry)
She wants to be adored. She won’t reveal this to you, but if you could sneak into her heart (if she would ever let you), you would know. Inside the husk of this yearning is a seed she buried ...
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February 2010 Reading
(Influences/Influences)
... So why not get a dog when I love them so much, and I know having a dog would bring love and sweet companionship into my life? What is being resisted? . . . continued in journal 3. Food Rules: ...
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Get quiet, soften, a way will open.
(Influences/Influences)
... that I might fall, or hurt myself, or, worse, fail in my attempt to climb. In the confusion of that racket, I could not bear even a few minutes of not knowing what to do next. I had to move down. ...