For April, I wanted to set a light intention. Something that would remind me to seek the light and look for the joy when listening. I think it’s easier for me to look for the substance, the depth, the “what’s wrong” then it is to be with lightness. I am not sure why. But this month, I want to listen with the intent of finding the joy. Listening with joy and for joy.
The lettering is somewhere in my pinterest board but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. And the image is of blowing bubbles, which gives me joy to do and to watch.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
I was looking at quotes last night to see what I might want to write today and I realized that Rumi and Ram Dass are speaking the most to me at the moment. As I scrolled through my list of quotes, this one jumped out at me. I tried to ignore it but no matter how much I went through the list, it would not let me go. So there’s today’s quote.
“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.” ? Rumi
There are so many parts of this quote that speak to me. I’ve always been a cautious person by nature. It’s just who I am. But even so, the idea of forgetting safety really appeals to me. When I read the last two lines, they sound extreme but also there’s this quality of total letting go. Not caring about others. Living whole. Just as I am. I love the sound of that.
The part that stands out the most for me, however, is “live where you fear to live.” I love this idea. I love the idea of walking towards the fear. Living in it, instead of running away from it. One of the things I’ve noticed for me is that as I’ve aged, I’ve become more fearful. (Izabela mentioned in yesterday’s post, too.) I am not sure what it is. Maybe I have more at stake. Maybe I have more to lose. Maybe the repercussions of a mistake seem much larger. Or maybe I haven’t been practicing bravery enough and my muscles have atrophied.
Earlier this week, I watched this wonderful video by Danielle. And I loved the very beginning where she says: “Your mantra of choice is: I’ll figure it out.”
I love that.
I want that.
That’s how I want to think. I don’t want to stay away from things due to fear. I don’t want to worry. I don’t want to not try. I want to keep saying that mantra in my head “I will figure it out.” Because I know I will. When you’re determined to figure it out, the universe moves with you. So you just have to have faith and jump in.
And I just don’t want to be afraid anymore.
I remember telling my husband years ago (he was my boyfriend then) that we have to quit our jobs on Wall Street. That we have to be willing to walk away so that we get used to looking for new jobs, knowing our worth, interviewing. So that we never feel afraid to leave. So that we never feel trapped.
I don’t ever want to feel trapped in my own life. I don’t have to feel like a victim of my choices. I want to be able to move into places I fear and have faith that I will figure it out. I will survive.
Nah. not just survive.
I will thrive.
This particular thought has been on my mind often lately. Especially as I count down to my fortieth birthday, I’ve been thinking about the concept of “too late” and about how I had expected my life to turn out and who I had thought I might grow up to be, etc.
I was one of those unusual people who knew what she wanted from a very young age. Before I was in middle school, I already knew I wanted to work with computers (and some form of art ideally) and I knew that I wanted to study in the United States.
As I step back to look at my life now, I joyfully acknowledge that I have had many of my dreams come true. I have now been living in the US for twenty years, I own a home that I love, have a truly wonderful husband who loves me probably as much as any human can, I have two young kids who are gifts that I am grateful for each day. I have a job at a wonderful company who treats its people as well as can be expected from a company. And I get to work with computers and help build a product I care deeply about. I get to coach people who inspire me. I also get to do a lot of art in my spare time and have the honor of designing for a few manufacturers whose products I love.
I am not sure I could have designed a better life if I tried.
And yet.
Of course, it’s far from perfect.
I still think about “what i might have been.” I wonder what that even means. I think about the kind of person I turned out to be. The way I treat the people I love. The peace I seem to yearn for but never allow inside. The changes I would like in my day-to-day life. The amount of stress I am carrying at any moment in time. How much I’d like to do with my kids. How much more I might want to do for myself.
There are parts of me that I wish were fundamentally different.
But then I think, wouldn’t that change everything? If I had been a different person, wouldn’t my life also have turned out differently? Would I be willing to give up all that I have to be this other person? My husband, my kids, my life?
Likely not.
I have always chosen to take the known over unknown. Partly because when I sit down to think about things seriously, I realize that there’s more good about me and my life than the bad. Most of which I wouldn’t be willing to give up in exchange for other possibilities.
However.
This doesn’t mean I couldn’t change and shift things now. In this day and age, forty is not old at all. If I am lucky, I might get to live another fifty years. That’s more years than I’ve been alive so far. It means that instead of being near the end of the road, I am not even halfway yet. So this is no time to give up.
It is definitely not too late to be who I might have been. Every day is a new opportunity to recalibrate. I get to choose who I am each moment. Who I am and who I want to be.
It is not too late to be who I want to be.
I had a lot of dreams at the age of nine and I followed through on almost all. Now that I am almost forty, it’s a good time to sit and make some new ones.
How about you, do you think it’s too late to be what you might have been?
I finished my monthly project in March and will be posting it next week. For April, I decided I will try the “A month of writing phrases.” When I saw Lori was teaching a class in February, my intention was to take the class and then schedule this for a month later. From having taken her previous class, I knew she’d inspire me and she did not disappoint!
I have also been sad that I am not posting my thoughts posts anymore, so I thought maybe I can couple the two and see if I can post more in April. No promises as I am doing a lot of work at work but let’s see how it goes.
This is one of the phrases that I have in my inspiration board for this year. When I first saw it on pinterest it immediately spoke to me. This whole concept isn’t even new to me. Years ago, I read Now Discover Your Strengths, which fundamentally talks about the idea of focusing what you’re good at. I remember one specific example of how when your kids come home with an A in English and a C in math, you spend a lot of time asking them why they got the C and how to improve it but you don’t focus on why English is an A and what that might mean. We don’t focus on the good. Instead we have this idea that we should be well-rounded and “good enough” on everything.
While it might be valuable to have a solid base on many different things, clearly we’re never going to be excellent at everything. And if you’re going to pick something to be good at, why not start where you’re already excelling?
I also feel like we tend to assume that what we’re good at is as easy for others as it is for us. Or as fun. And neither is true. Each of us has her own unique cross-section of things we’re good at and enjoy and like to spend time doing. This list is not to be dismissed or undermined, it’s to be looked at really carefully. This is your essence. The stuff that comes “easily” to you or the stuff you like dedicating your time on is your stuff. It’s where your passion and talent meet.
It is not to be undervalued.
I feel that if we all did more of what we love and came easily to us, and less of trying to round out the parts of us that are less natural, we’d be happier and the world would be a better place. Not to extremes, of course, but to some extend. We do not all have to be good at Calculus. We do all have to understand some basic math. We do not all have to be able to write incredible poems. But we should all read some. To me, the balance is not in the “doing it all well enough.”
The idea is to pay attention to who you already are and cultivate that deeply. Take those seeds and really grow them.
And then you watch them bloom.
Here we are, at the end of March. For this week, even though most of the week will be April, I wanted to set one more brave intention. I figured after daring to be open, releasing what I was holding on to, and stopping to listen, it was only fair that I also chose to leap. Even though most of this word is not about action for me this year, I still feel like even small, tiny leaps to honor what I hear will be worthwhile.
The lettering I used here comes from Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy.
I don’t know if the image worked well but it’s intended to look like a woman leaping. Half the fun of it was trying.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Since last week is about releasing, this week had to be about stopping and listening. Once I release, I am now ready to stop and to truly listen. This also requires a lot of bravery. I need to be willing to hear what’s being said. I need to be willing to stop and not go go go.
The lettering I used here comes from this pin.
I chose to do a bird sitting again because birds are my image for 2014 and I really liked this one which looked like it was stopping to listen.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Another step in brave listening is releasing what I am holding on to. For me to be able to really hear, I need to stop the noise and I need to release the thoughts, ideas, beliefs I am holding on to. Part of listening and hearing is not carrying preconceived ideas. So this week’s intent is to release.
The lettering I used here comes from Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy.
I chose to do a balloon because it’s a great representation of releasing something I might cherish and hold on to and releasing it in the short term feels a bit painful.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Here we are. Since March is all about being brave, it made sense to me that the first intention I wanted to set was to dare. This sounds like doing stuff, but it’s actually not. What I had in mind was to dare to listen to my inner whispers. Dare to listen to the universe’s voice. Dare to listen to the smaller, quieter sounds that might be coming from the crushed parts of my soul or even from the deepest desires.
The lettering I used here comes from Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy.
I chose to do a bird sitting and then birds flying because I feel like the first step is to sit and listen to the sounds. Dare to allow myself to hear them. Dare to listen to them. Which I believe will give me the strength and push to then soar.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Here we are. Another month, another intent to Listen. I decided that March was the month to start being brave. Paying attention to the quiet voices. Trying new things. Taking leaps big and small. Listening without fear or worry.
I think that sometimes when you’re living life, it gets easy to just do the next thing. Sometimes I don’t even think too hard about what I want and/or whether it’s the Right thing. I’m not saying I make bad choices, but more that I am not engaged when I take action. I do the next thing there is to do. I do what must be done (what I think must be done.)
For me, being brave, is about listening to the voices that are not the loudest. Listening to other ways of doing something. Listening to the quieter voices. Listening to what my soul whispers. Listening to what my body craves. The voices I don’t make time for. The voices I am purposefully avoiding.
Being brave is hard. Being brave requires intent. My plan is to dedicate march to practicing courage with my listening.
Here’s the lettering I used and for my sketches I decided on some arrows. Now sure why. Maybe I was thinking about the Hunger Games when I drew this…
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
For my final intent in the month of February I wanted to make sure to remember What Matters Most. This is something that I know I can lose sight of quickly. It’s easy to take things for granted. I don’t think of how lucky I am to be healthy until I feel sick. I don’t think about the wonderful house we live in or our car unless something breaks down. Sometimes I have to lose something to remember how important it is. And I don’t want that to be the case.
I want to always remember what matters most and be deliberate to make sure I listen to those that matter most over the other stuff that can get in the way. If I chose to work at home so I can be there for my kids but then I don’t listen to them when they need me cause I am in the middle of a work issue, am I remembering what I decided matters most? (Obviously there are exceptions but in general, if I made an active choice of family over career, it makes sense that when there’s a family issue, for the most part, it should get my attention first.)
So my intention this week is to be deliberate about what matters most. To pay attention to it. What does matter most? How much am I honoring it? How closely am I choosing to listen to what matters most?
The lettering I used is here and I decided to go with simple little hearts for my sketch this week.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Continuing with the theme of Listening Deliberately, I thought a lot about what I would like to focus on this week. Slow down is what came up. Maybe I should have switched last week’s intent with this one since it feels like slowing down should come before making a choice does, but alas this is how it showed up and I’m sticking with it.
Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me that I will have to slow down this week if I want to be deliberate. I am not the kind of person who slows down very often. I don’t mean the lack-of-focus: I can sit still and read a book for four hours straight. But when I am doing a task, I tend to rush through it. I tend to want to “get it done.” It’s not even getting it over with as much as it is being able to check it off my list.
Considering the size of my list, if I want to check things off, I am not slowing down very often.
And yes, when you don’t slow down, you miss things. You miss important things. You are not being deliberate. You’re not even present, how could you be deliberate? So the intent for this week is to slow down. Way, way, way down.
Let’s see how I do.
This week’s lettering is here and I chose the meditating girl for my sketch because meditating is an excellent way to slow down.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
Since this month’s goal is to be deliberate, I felt like choose was a very obvious intention to set for this week. One of the crucial parts of being deliberate is exercising choice. If I don’t get to choose what I am listening to, I am using the verb passively, I am listening to what’s louder or more annoying or shinier, or whatever is catching my attention for some reason.
Choosing implies that I am paying attention and making an active decision to listen to something particular (over something else.) I might choose silence. I might choose music. I might choose Nathaniel. I might choose work.
It doesn’t matter as much what the choice is, as the fact that I am doing the choosing.
The power is in the act of choosing.
This week’s lettering is from here and the sketch is supposed to be the corner of a compass. I chose a compass because compasses help tell direction. My intent is for my core desires and “the important” to be this week’s compass.
Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.
|
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
|
