Love Notes for Gratitude

OH but I should wait until Thanksgiving to post this one, right? Oh well, I feel overwhelming gratitude today so I will post this today! The world is better when we express gratitude in real time, no??

What are you grateful for today? How have you already expressed it? How much better is your day, your life, when you do?

With abandon, my friends. Effuse it. Let’s go.

  1. One year I wrote a thank you card a day. It was a centering experience. Maybe I can do it again in the New Year? God knows I have enough CARDS! 😀

2. Thank you for being you, sharing yourself with the rest of us, and not depriving us of the great joy and pleasure of knowing you.

3. Family Friends Teachers Colleagues Good Leaders Kind Strangers — Any human with a kind heart — Thank you all!

4. What is the silliest, most absurd thing that you are really grateful for? I have so many but pretty paper, OMG. Life would just not be as good without it!!

5. Holy COW, so much to be thankful for. And today I feel it especially for all the folks to trust me. What a big privilege and honor.

6. May all of your myriad acts of gratitude be reinforced so you stay motivated to commit them often and with great enthusiasm! More more more please! Thank you!

7. When someone opens up and shares something personal, we need to thank them for it. Because that is an act of bravery and trust, and needs to be acknowledged. Let’s pay attention, k?

8. I think it’s a great idea to always keep on hand paper and pen to write our gratitude down so it is documented and shared. This way it’s amplified and there is more of it in the world.

9. A quarter of this century is almost over! Holy cow! Thank our lucky stars that we are all still here, holding one another up! Let’s keep going, yes?

10. Do you have gratitude rituals? I don’t. But I think practices are more important and easier than rituals… When they are spontaneous and second nature–all the better!

11. I bet you made someone’s life better today and I am grateful for that because it made the world better and that is how we survive the shit show! Thank you!

12. How has gratitude (yours or others’) made your life better today? Wouldn’t it be even better if there were more of it getting tossed around?

Teehee, those came out fast. More where they came from–stay tuned. 🙂

Love Notes for Balance

Tonight’s post inspired by Ginny Clarke @ginny_clarke on Instagram:
True power moves from stillness. Real productivity flows from presence.
When you’re always in motion, you cannot hear your intuition. When you’re constantly busy, you cannot receive inspiration.
Your soul didn’t come here to be a productivity machine.
Find the stillness within the storm.”

Balance is a dynamic state, I have said for a long time. I have learned four iterative lessons from five months of slackboard balance practice:
1. Activate the core
2. Relax
3. Feel it more than think it
4. Consistency, even if infrequent, yields results over time.
And of course, good music makes everything easier and more fun.

Head over to my Instagram page @chenger91 and check out the slackboard story highlight reels. I record every session, though I don’t necessarily post. I learn a lot from watching myself and seeing progress from a different perspective. Standing on one foot on a two inch strap, shifting weight and moving in the sagittal plane while maintaining center of gravity in the midline coronally–FUN to train! And I’m getting better, which is gratifying.

Wishing all the dynamic balance that allows us to stay strong and soft, rooted and flexible, stable and mobile, all in a great cosmic integration, within ourselves and among one another.

The next twelve love notes below; which ones resonate with you?

  1. Light and dark, masculine and feminine, hard and soft, left and right. We each and all possess both. It is up to us to find the beneficial blend.

2. Persist until you yield. Go until you rest. Repeat. Find the rhythm that works. And in the process, may you find meaning and connection always.

3. Today may you feel a better integration of the disparate parts of yourself – the parts that are apparently in conflict. They are all part of your whole. They each have a place.

4. Sometimes we swing too far to one side or the other. It’s normal. No big deal. We can learn to manage the momentum and velocity better each time.

5. Extremes are rarely sustainable. Nature tends toward mutually beneficial balance in the long term. But storms still happen, and can alter the landscpe. Hang on. We can ride it.

6. Most things take practice for proficiency. We are born with a sense of symmetry but not necessarily balance. The latter can be trained. But we must engage.

7. May that which feels imbalanced for you find its way to a stable center, at least for a little while. May it let you rest and gain a new perspective, such that deviations from center diminish.

8. When did we learn to take turns? Such a brilliant concept. Fairness. Recipirocity. Mutual respect and accountability. Offer. Receive. And back again.

9. Do you prefer to stand on your right or left foot? How would training the opposite benefit you in ways you may not expect? Now I’m not just talking about slackboards.

10. Even the scorched forrest grows back more lush than before. It just takes time. So we can practice patience. And advocate consistently. From all sides. Just maybe leave the matches at home.

11. May the forces that push and pull you out of balance, both intrinsic and extrinsic, find you increasingly stable and resilient to their disruptive influences. May your roots ground you.

12. *sigh* So many moving parts in thls life! :O Is it not amazing that we can move through it all with any sense of balance and stability? So pat yourself on the back–you’re doing great!

Oooo, fascinating. I had no idea so much political inuendo would emerge in this set! Is it obvious? Not sure I’ve ever written anything like that before… Maybe I will try my hand at allegory one day. 😉

Love Notes for Making Friends

SO FUN! I went to my first industry dinner since before the pandemic. Heard a couple of informative talks while enjoying salad, pasta, fish, steak, and then the best tiramisu I’ve ever had! But the best part was talking to my new friend E. We had met before and we have mutual acquaintances, and tonight was our chance to know each other better. We talked industry, parenting, the pitfalls of corporate culture, topics of extemporaneous talks we’d give, and what we like about ourselves, as well as what we’re working on.

How often do you walk away from random conversations feeling uplifted, connected, intrigued, and reflective? How awesome would it be to have this every time you met someone, anyone, anywhere, under any circumstance? It may not be realistic, but hey, aim for the sun, right? Let’s see if I can inspire this attitude in tonight’s twelve, shall we? I’m excited for this challenge:

  1. Food, music, sports, activism, travel — Whatever helps you connect meaningfully to other lovely humans is what I wish for you. Books, nature, insects– Whatever! 😀

2. What do you wish people would ask you about yourself? What do you want to know about other people that’s related? Why not connect around either? Could be fun!

3. Who will be your next great friend? You never know, right? May you approach any new-to-you human with the spirit of potential and utter possibility!

4. May your openness, curiosity, humility, empathy, generosity, and kindness be rewarded at least ten times over, today and all days — May the positive reinforcement fill your tank!

5. Where in your body do you feel the first inklings of a new wonderful friendship? May that part positively vibrate on a daily basis! No such thing as too many friends! 😀

6. What part of you really wants to be seen? May you find yourself surrounded by folks who really want to see it, and may you have the courage to show them.

7. I may not know you but I know you are worthy of attention and love. May all you meet today prove this to you, so you may never doubt or question again.

8. May you see in every person you meet today someone who is loved and admired by someone else. May that perspective lead your psyche in your own interactions, and may you be rewarded for it.

9. We have something in common with every person we will meet. How fun would it be to find out the most interesting thing we share with anyone? 😀 Wanna try with your next stranger? 🙂

10. You have fun and interesting things to say! Look around. Take a deep breath. Read the room. Be kind. Then let the interesting out!

11. What’s on your mind? Who can you share it with who will meet you there, ask you more about it, and take it farther with you? Why not reach out?

12. Oh, my dear darling. There are so many lovely humans everywhere, I know it. Not all folks are out to hurt others. May the next human you meet prove me right!

Ooo, that was fun! Writing them is the easy part–taking, cropping, and uploading the photos is the rate limiting step! I think I could keep going with this theme for a while yet… Maybe for the Ethos jar. 😉 Onward, my friends!!! xo