As Jack London once said, “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.” Far too often we travel through life on autopilot, going through the motions, accepting what is, and having every day pass like the one before it. Everything seems relatively normal and comfortable, except that constant twitch in the back of your mind that’s saying, “It’s time to make some changes.”
It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more manhood (or womanhood) to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.
- Alex Karras
If you desire radical change in your life, you must WANT radical change. In today’s vlog I riff about the importance of surrendering to our desire for change. If you don’t truly want to change then you’ll continue to stay in the same cycle. I encourage you to join me in the ego outing process and share a habit you’ve had trouble changing. Getting honest is the first step to true surrender.
by Jen Lambert
My close friend has a book out. I just read it cover to cover, and although I’ve read most of those poems in various forms throughout the past couple of years, the collection still brought me to tears. It’s a gorgeous expression of passion and heartache, yearning and loss. It’s the paradoxical exhilaration and grief that surround the metamorphosis of woman to wife to mother and then that the long flight back to find the woman again.
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
-Arthur Ashe (1943-1993); American tennis player, social activist
“Compliments are the helium that fills everyone’s balloon; they elevate the person receiving them so he or she can fly over life’s troubles and land safely on the other side.”
-Bernie S. Siegel M.D.; Author
By Martha Beck
O, The Oprah Magazine
Of course you can feel wretched about wrinkles, jowls, thinning hair—all the slings and arrows of time and mortality. You can try to fight back—giving new meaning to the words in vain. Or you can rise—serenely, even happily—above i
From the June 2008 issue of O
By Valerie Monroe
Everywhere we turn, there are images of gorgeous women, constant reproaches to the reality of us, with our real bodies and un-Photoshopped flaws. We’re not buying it anymore. We’re tackling the critics—from the parents and teachers who favor the prettiest children to look-ist employers to the most hurtful of all, that nasty, catty girl who lives right behind our eyes.
Not long ago, I sat in my office, chatting with a friend. “I want to talk to you about your face,” I said. “Oh my God,” she said, looking stricken. “Do I need a facelift?” (I forget that people think I have a right to be openly critical of their appearance because I’m a beauty editor.) No, no, I said; I only wanted to know what she saw when she looked in the mirror.
Photo: Thinkstock
By Martha Beck: O, The Oprah Magazine
Esteem is a warm, accepting quality, and directing it toward oneself is a fine thing. However, not all aspects of human behavior merit this cozy welcome. Positive-thinking guides rarely draw the distinction between healthy self-acceptance and the malignant narcissism characteristic of tyrants who dominate relationships and households, if not entire nations. Think of someone in your life who seems to have an abundance of self-satisfaction. Now think about the way you feel after an interaction with this person. If you feel warm, nourished, and valued, you’ve probably encountered someone with healthy self-esteem. But if the conversation leaves you feeling ashamed, confused, self-doubting, or invisible, break out the red flags. It’s highly likely you’re dealing with a narcissist. Asian philosophy might call narcissism the “near enemy” of real self-esteem; something that looks like the genuine article but has opposite results. Learning to spot narcissists and deal with their destructive behavior can save you the world of hurt that awaits anyone who mistakes the near enemy for a friend.
If you’ve failed to keep your resolutions, Martha Beck has a way for you to succeed this year: by joining forces with the people you least resemble (and, often, most want to throttle).
By Martha Beck
Last year four of my friends—Marlene, Ellie, Karla, and Chip—all resolved to get in shape and lose weight. Now, these people had never met, so the odds of their making exactly the same resolution were…actually quite predictable, since pretty much everybody puts fitness on their New Year’s resolutions list. There are rumors of humans who’ve never resolved to eat less and move more, but until scientists discover concrete evidence (hair, fibers, DNA-smeared doughnut boxes), we must assume they exist only in hallucinations of ordinary people who’ve been weakened by months and months of dieting.
At any rate, by last February all my friends had fallen off the resolution wagon and were munching their way to larger clothing sizes and a profound sense of failure. Something similar may happen to you this year, whatever your resolutions.If it does, don’t blame your weak will; blame isolation. Research shows that humans tend to do difficult things much better in teams and groups than on their own. I suggest that this year you seek a specific type of goal-oriented companionship I call the Fellowship of the Resolution.
The Virtue of Motley Crews
If you loved J.R.R. Tolkien’s TheLord of the Rings (or hated it but absorbed the plot because of peer pressure), you’ll recall that the Fellowship of the Ring was a team consisting of hobbits, humans, a dwarf, a wizard, and an elf. Although these species usually avoided one another, their disparities turned out to be essential for saving Middle Earth. The Fellowship met monsters only a hobbit could trick, caves only a dwarf could spelunk, spells only an elf could counter, and orcs whose strength could be overcome only by Viggo Mortensen’s flexing of his facial muscles, paralyzing the beasts with acute awareness of their inferior looks.
When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, you, too, need a Fellowship. But it’s not enough to enlist your longtime BFFs—the buddies you’ve known forever, who think and act just like you. As Tolkien’s story suggests, the key to success is teaming up with people who are emphatically not on your wavelength. This is especially true in behavioral patterns called conative styles.
Stalk the Clock
Shake off the Shock
Highs and Lows
And So it Goes…
Sleepless Black
The papers Stack
Words that Spill
While she Heals
Break, she May…
Vows to Stay
In the Game
Without the Shame.
My intention in sharing my journal is to share with you…
I write, collage and photograph my world…
I have a passionate love affair with the written word…
I say yes to all things real in life… I choose to live outside the box…
I am not easily swayed from my personal truths and belief-system…
I am a freethinker…
Open mindedness is an absolute for me, it is not subjective.
I hope you find something upon these pages that speaks to you personally…
Thanks for reading!
“The real voyage of discovery consists
not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes.”
by
Marcel Proust
I consider myself to be among the walking wounded (as I believe… we all are)… and if we as a people have never felt the infinite void caused by losing a loved one… perhaps a Sister, Brother, Mother or Father or quite possibly, your Mother and your Father within a span of six months as I recently did…or you’ve not yet felt the sting of personal failure, the humility while asking for financial assistance, or needing a handout of food and/or possibly food stamps in order to feed your belly that’s been empty with an ache which seems like an eternity… or had to ask for help feeding yourself because you’re too sick to lift the fork. We all get a turn if we’re blessed to live long enough and that’s a fact… I
