That deep emotion that brings tears to your eyes

Posted by random olio

We all feel it. You know those times when the emotion of the moment, the song, the words that someone says to you that hits your heart, and the water flows so quickly from your eyes. You try, yes, you try so hard to hold it back, your face puckers a bit and eventually the tear slides down your face. Emotion has hit you, sometimes when you least expect it.

Yes, this video has been going around Facebook and the Internet in the past week, but I could not help but share it just in case you have not seen it. I have never seen this type of emotion from someone so young (10 months old). It is as though this baby can feel and understand the music. It brought tears to my eyes. Not the music, or the words, just watching the feeling and depth of this baby’s reaction. It is truly priceless.

Have you ever seen anything like it? Do you think this baby understands music in a way that many cannot comprehend?

#amazing #happyfriday

Moment-by-Moment Choices

Posted by random olio

We always have this moment, and the next, and the next. We always have the option to decide how to respond and react. We can lash out or respond with poise. We always have a choice. Last week after writing about how Marianne Williamson was running for Congress in California, I continued to research and read about what she has been doing. This led me to finding her blog, and one comment in particular resonated with me:

“We make moment-by-moment decisions what kind of people to be — whether to be someone who blesses, or who blames; someone who obsesses about past and future, or who dwells fully in the present; someone who whines about problems, or who creates solutions. It’s always our choice what attitudinal ground to stand on: the emotional quicksand of negative thinking, or the airstrip of spiritual flight.”

I want to be someone who blesses, dwells in the present, and creates solutions. I can tell you that I sometimes get sucked into the emotional quicksand of negative thinking. Yet, if we make moment-by-moment decisions, then we can fix that negative thinking in the next moment. I saw that last week when I was angry with someone. I really do not like feeling angry. I do not like how it makes my body or my mind feel. It makes me feel off. However, I have a hard time saying I was wrong, or forgiving.

Last week however, I leveraged that moment-by-moment decision-making. I allowed myself to be angry for a few hours, and then I thought, “What a waste!” Sure I am still bummed by what happened, but does it do me any good to be angry? No. So I told this individual that I had forgiven them (well almost). I did it in a way that made me feel like the bigger person (I was not completely ready to let them off the hook).

It was progress though. That is all we have to do each day is make progress in becoming the individual we want to be, to unearth the individual we already are.

She remembered.

Posted by random olio

We all want to be remembered. We want to know we matter. Sometimes we are remembered and we are in awe of the individual that remembered us. I often have blog posts about customer service, the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly. I still have wide eyes after this experience, and yet you might consider it mundane.

At the end of last week, I went by a Nike store to return a few items. The last time I had been at this location was in mid-September when a good friend was in town. We had spent a bit of time there looking for clothes and shoes for her, her husband, little baby girl, and step-son. During that visit I had a shift of thought. Nothing ground breaking, but a shift nonetheless. You see, I can sometimes get addicted to something and not want to try something new. I mean that in the form of the running shoes I wear. I’ll tell you what happened.

My friend and I started looking at running shoes. She asked me what were the best for the different kinds of needs of a runner (over pronation, flat foot, under pronation). While discussing each potential option for her, the sales associate (Nike calls them Athletes) asked if she could help us. We asked her a few questions, and she asked me what I run in. I told her the LunarGlide 3 and that I had a stash of them in my closet because once I find something I like I want to make sure I can keep using them. This is a tough thing to uphold when you wear a Nike running shoe, as they innovate so fast. The Athlete said to just on the LunarGlide 5’s for her. I resisted for a while, and she persisted. Finally, I grumbled, and gave in. I tried them and I was hooked immediately. I bought a pair (as did my friend). I began running in them the next day, and have not once touched my 3’s.

Fast forward to the end of last week (remember, I was returning a few items). I am quickly scanning men’s shoes with Chris to see if there was anything new, and this Athlete looks at me and says, “How are the LunarGlide 5’s?” I was flabbergasted. I stared at her a minute, as a zillion things crossed my thought. “She remembered me. Wow. That is amazing. That was over a month ago. I only met her once. How did she do that?” I slowly regained my focus in the present and said, “I love them. I recently purchased a second pair.” I pointed down to my feet. As I walked away to find Chris and tell him what happened. It was not until I was home that I thought to get her name. I should have. She made me think about the power of remembering, of caring. If only we treated everyone that way.

#sheremembered

Being Me and Being Seen

Posted by random olio

What does it mean to be me? Saying what is on my mind. Not having a filter. Laughing when the urge hits me, even when sometimes it might not be appropriate. Going there. Yes, I mean sometimes going there, to the gutter, and sometimes it is the wrong time. Listening wholeheartedly. Saying yes way too much. Rarely crying, but when it happens, it is because something hits my emotional core, or when someone sees and speaks to a raw part of myself.

I struggled so much during my childhood and even into my college years with being enough — wondering if I was enough. Was I pretty enough? Was I small enough? Was I smart enough? Was I good enough? Enough with all the enoughs. Eventually I got fed up. Eventually I lost it. Eventually I just wanted to be me.

As I got older, and I had the ability to see life in hindsight, I saw a little girl who loved children, who loved to be childlike, who wanted to play, but who had to keep life together and make sure that from the outside everything was okay. In many ways, having the facade of normalcy, was what she wanted. She just wanted to be normal, and in some ways trying to prove her life was normal concealed to those around her what was really happening. Sort of like a company that needs more employees, but rather than the current employees showing that, they just work harder and longer, instead of making it apparent that what was needed was more bodies and minds to help.

All this came to me after reading a recent blog post from Emily Parkinson Perry’s. I have shared her blog before, and her words are always an inspiration to me. This quote about authenticity made me think about being me.

“To me, being authentic means being unapologetically you. It means laughing out loud, accepting your faults, being present with pain, and okay with uncertainty. It means saying you’re sorry, or that you don’t know the answer. It means saying, ‘I love you’, and allowing yourself to drop into the free-fall feeling of it. It means allowing yourself to truly be seen.”

It took until I was a senior in college, but I finally understood that being me meant not hiding behind what others wanted of me, that I could be me as loud as I wanted without apology. And I am. I am loud, and sometimes emotional, opinionated, and strong-willed. I know what I want, and sometimes it is hard to get me to change my mind. Even if I am wrong. It is hard for me to say “I’m sorry” and I will always tell you if I do not know something. Then later she says:

“Your authenticity lies in the moments when you’re caught off-guard; when you blush at the compliment, laugh at your own mistake, or get caught singing in the car. Those are the precious gifts you give to the world—they are the moments when you let down your guard and allow yourself to be seen—you, as your beautiful, true, authentic self. When you let yourself be seen, it gives others the courage to do the same, and the world needs more of that.”

I love, love, love this. It happened last week when a co-worker asked me something out of the blue. She saw me at my rawest, and that made me cry. Or when I said burger instead of booger, and Chris could not stop laughing at me. I was seen, and I laughed and I cried.

Kick Ass Author for Congress

Posted by random olio

One of my all time favorite authors and lecturers, Marianne Williamson, is running for Congress for California’s Congressional District 33. Hell yeah! While I have no desire to move to LA, and politics and party lines aside, it would be so fun to vote and fill in that box by her name on my ballot. What an inspiration her words have brought to my life. It brings me joy and inspires me, and hopefully it will inspire women to vote, and to get off their ass and open their mouth and speak up.

The very first Marianne Williamson book I read was in high school, called “Return to Love.” I still have my copy of that book, with all the tabs and highlighted quotes and notes. The pages have become worn with age because it is not a book I read once or twice, it was a book that sustained me during some tough times in my life. I can remember being a sophomore in high school, away at boarding school, and that book would go with me everywhere. Return to Love is her take on “A Course in Miracles” which I never got into, but her explanation and personal experience was just the right story I needed to hear at a time when what I needed most was a showering of love in my life. Here is a quote that resonated with me and was very marked up in my copy of Return to Love:

“People who have the most to teach us are often the ones who reflect back to us the limits to our own capacity to love, those who consciously or unconsciously challenge our fearful position. They show us our walls. Our walls are our wounds–the places where we feel we can’t love any more, can’t connect any more deeply, can’t forgive past a certain point. We are in each other’s lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.” page 107

Over the years I read quite a few of her books. The two that I remember and stand out to me the most (if you were interested and wanted to crack one open) are “A Woman’s Worth” and “The Gift of Change.” Of course the feminist in me found solace in A Woman’s Worth. It is a book that looks at women’s issues from a lens of healing, rather than lacking. The Gift of Change really looks at our lives and how we can shift and change our world, this one has a very spiritual twist.

I encourage you to read her announcement and why she is running for Congress on the home page of her website. If you live in the 33rd Congressional District, vote, vote, vote!

#Inspiredbymarianne