Connect 4

con·nec·tion  (k-nkshn)

n.

1.

a. The act of connecting.

b. The state of being connected.

2. One that connects; a link: made a connection between the two pipes.

3. An association or relationship: There appeared to be no connection between the two crimes.

4. The logical or intelligible ordering of words or ideas; coherence.

5. Reference or relation to something else; context: In this connection, the agreement can be seen as a step toward peace.

6. A person, especially one of influence or importance, with whom one is associated, as by kinship or common interests: used her connections to land a job.

7. A conveyance or scheduled run providing continuing service between means of transportation: missed my connection in Atlanta.

8. A physical link, such as by wire or fiber-optic cable, between two or more points in a telecommunications system: established a connection to the Internet.

9. A means or channel of communication: couldn't hear due to the bad phone connection.

10. Slang

a. A drug dealer.

b. A purchase of illegal drugs.

I love to puzz. Puzzling is one of my favorite Winter activities. I love figuring out how all the pieces connect and you can start to look for the pieces that fit together (you even start dreaming in puzzles after a while...maybe that's just me!).  I'm finding that the puzzle pieces of my relationships are much more difficult that those Ravensburgers that I love so much.

As of late, my social and work calendars have been so packed--I feel like I'm short circuiting due to over-connecting. It doesn't help that I've lost my voice, yet once again, which doesn't allow for me to communicate and connect the way I like to. I'm still learning my lessons of connecting with disingenuous people and realizing that there are very few people in life who are honest, caring & have the capacity to have a genuine connection. Gotta keep listening to my instincts and sussing out who is genuine and who's just a jerkface. Whew. It's rough work. Maybe I'll just take a short hibernation....

Here's to a Tuesday of connection--with your self, your community, your friends, your favorite book...Happy Tuesday!

We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness. 

-Albert Schweitzer

Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain. -Sharon Salzberg

Only through our connectedness to other can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.

 -Harriet Goldhor Lerner

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect. -E.M. Forster

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Own own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller,  and we increase our capacity for connection--or compassionate action. -Daniel Goleman

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention.... A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.

- Rachel Naomi Remen

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.

- Herman Melville

Be Fearless

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

-Louisa May Alcott

Last weekend I went to a Haunted House. They had the attendees fill out a card before entering the event. The card asked what you were most afraid of. After hearing other people's answers of: the dark, spiders, bugs...I realized my answer of, "being unloved", was really not what they might have been looking for. There goes my honesty getting me into trouble again!

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. 

-Michael Pritchard

I've been terrified lately. I've been so filled with fear that I think I've been making myself sick! This week, after receiving my fortune cookie that said, "Don't Panic", I thought it was time to just face my fears head on. Here's to being fearless and embracing those things that terrify you. Happy Tuesday. Be fearless! I'm gonna keep my little ship sailing along as I greet those fears every day.

He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear.  ~French Proverb

Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light. 
-Dorothy Thompson

Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them. -Marilyn Ferguson

Fear is my good friend, it shows me the way to nowhere; I choose another way. 
-Yossi Ghinsberg

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
-Marianne Williamson

Be good to you

I don't like myself, I'm crazy about myself -Mae West

Last week, I had the opportunity to go with one of my favorite neighbor peeps, Lisa, to her weekly yoga class at East Yoga. The class was great (not the same as my favorite Tglaz at Abhaya in Dumbo...) and she had us focus on a person we loved and something we wanted to give that person. I chose one of the most loved people in my life and chose love of self. We spent the hour and fifteen minutes devoting our practice to them, and fast forward, at the end of class the teacher says, "...and you chose this quality for your person because it's actually what you need for yourself". Bazaam! Totes.

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. -Budddha

I think I'm really good at loving other people. I'm good at taking care of them. Making their favorite treat to surprise them. Finding the perfect little thing to suit them. Listening when they need to talk. But, I'm not the best at taking care of myself. I hate cooking for myself. I'd rather listen than blabber on about my problems. I'll make a flour filled dessert before a mediocre gluten free treat that I could have myself....

So, this week's Happy Tuesday is about taking care of yourself and being good to yourself. Take some time today and do something for you that you would normally do for someone you love. Love who you are today and take care of that beautiful person.

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance” -Oscar Wilde

If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself. -Barbara De Angelis

People who do not love themselves can adore others, because adoration is making someone else big and ourselves small. They can desire others, because desire comes out of a sense of inner incompleteness, which demands to be filled. But they can not love others, because love is an affirmation of the living growing being in all of us. If you don't have it, you can't give it. 
-Andrew Matthews

It is of practical value to learn to like yourself. Since you must spend so much time with yourself you might as well get some satisfaction out of the relationship. -Norman Vincent Peale

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more,

 do more and become more, you are a leader. 

-John Qunicy Adams

Inspire:
verb (used with object)

1.

to fill with an animating, quickening, or exalting influence:His courage inspired his followers.

2.

to produce or arouse (a feeling, thought, etc.): to inspireconfidence in others.

3.

to fill or affect with a specified feeling, thought, etc.: toinspire a person with distrust.

4.

to influence or impel: Competition inspired her to greaterefforts.

5.

to animate, as an influence, feeling, thought, or the like,does: They were inspired by a belief in a better future.

When I was in high school I was a huge dork (oh yes, believe it or not dear ones). I wore oversized t-shirts, Winnie-the-Pooh overalls, pigtails...oh dear. The pictures are scary. In my high school English class, we read Lord of the Flies. In the novel, there is one leader of the group: Ralph. We had a writing project in which we were broken up into 7 smaller groups. Each group had to choose one person out of our own class that would act as the Ralph character--the leader of the whole class.  Imagine my dork-a-rific self in total surprise when every group had chosen me. I couldn't understand why. I wasn't what I thought of as a leader of people.

"I always manage to inspire a strong reaction one way or another" -Nathan Lane

Recently, I was able to relate to this idea more. I had a very new friend as well as a very long time friend both tell me that I inspire them. Now brown cow, I don't think I'm all that and a bag of chips, but I suddenly understood my high school English class. My new-ish friend said to me, "You don't see it do you? People see the way you're living your life. The way you are being you. The way you manage to write personalized notes to everyone, gather a group, bake a ton of goodies and still be happy. They see you and they don't understand it, yet they are inspired themselves to do more and be better people" {and I'm paraphrasing here...I think I got most of it right :)}.

 Maybe when people see that it's possible to do what you love, be who you are and still have a sense of fulfillment it also seems possible for them?

                               "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to

 be what we know we could be" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's affirming for me to have good friends tell me such things. Better that than they can't stand me, right? Since I've been traveling solo without many people to talk to or bake for or simply tell they are great people I've felt myself get a bit sad. I realize what a crucial part of my day to day life those sort of things are. I am so inspired by people in my life--from my own parents who married very young not knowing what the world had in store for them, to friends who take on totally new careers, unsure what will happen. People who bravely open themselves up to a new love, new life, new experiences. There are so many sources of inspiration out there. What inspires you? I'd love to know. We can all start sourcing our inspiration water from the same well.

"My purpose is to inspire people of all walks of life to discover the virtue inherent within them and to bring forth that virtue in their daily lives". -William Shirley

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.--Dr. Seuss

Today you are You,

                                        that is truer than true.

There is no one alive

who is Youer than You.--Dr. Seuss

I have been having the best summer of my life. This summer, I've just tried to be me. I've lived most of my life worried what people thought of me. I was worried that they didn't like me, possibly annoyed with how I acted, what I said, if they thought I was nice or smart or pretty. After getting my nice, smart, pretty butt dumped, I was worried that it was because they didn't like who I was. I started this year spending time with someone who thought I was too much. I have spent the summer just enjoying who I am and being that person every day. I surround myself with wonderful people who seem to like this person that is me. Maybe they still get annoyed, but I'm at a point where I think that is their issue and they don't have to spend time with me if they don't like me :). It's a great sense of freedom and I have so much more time to think about ways to make my little universe a better place, rather than consuming myself with what other people think of me. So, go out in to the amazing world just being you. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Love it.

By your own soul, learn to live

                               And if men thwart you take no heed.

If men hate you have no care.

Sing your song, dream your dream,

Hope your hope and pray your prayer.--Parkenham Beatty

I was once afraid of people saying, "Who does she think she is?" Now I have the courage to stand and say, "This is who I am."--Oprah Winfrey

If you are what you should be, then you will set the world on fire.--St. Catherine of Siena 

oh, that's right, I'll personalize your HT if you live near me and request it :)