“How do you know when you’re in love?” She asked.
When the desire for pleasure is gone… And yet… They’re still able to halt time.
I help busy people do inner work.
The full collection of explorations.
“How do you know when you’re in love?” She asked.
When the desire for pleasure is gone… And yet… They’re still able to halt time.
I found myself doing a deathbed meditation today.
Imagining what my regrets would be if I knew my life was coming to an end tonight…
And let me tell you… it brought up some pretty powerful visions and wishes.
I encourage you to spend some time doing the same. Take it seriously. See what comes up.
The upcoming new year is like a rebirth… as was the last new year… and the one before that.
Heck, each day is a rebirth or sorts, isn’t it?
Why spend time imagining something as morbid as laying on your deathbed for an extended period of time, you ask?
…Because the deeper you feel what it’s like to actually be on that deathbed, the more likely you’ll be to actually take these upcoming rebirths seriously.
P.s. Some fun updates on MoveMe Quotes as of today: (1) You can now click to get random quotes, picture quotes, and articles—perfect for spontaneous visits (in the header menu). (2) You can search within categories now (finally!)(e.g. Instead of searching “love quotes” and pulling up everything we’ve ever tagged with it, you can now search “love quotes” within the Picture Quotes category…!)(Can be found in the directory). (3) You can change the language of the entire website with a single click. Language options can be found in the header menu. Hope these updates help! Enjoy!
If the holidays wasn’t everything you hoped it would be… rather than place blame on those who didn’t deliver on your expectations… ask yourself: how can I take more of a role in making it into what I’d love it to be?
Maybe that involves doing the hosting yourself? Or introducing fun games to encourage more spontaneous connection? Or coming up with fresh and creative traditions that’ll get everybody talking… like wearing matching pajamas, or playing a game of spoons, or gifting an incredibly random gag gift…
The point is to take control over what you can control. And if you’re not willing to do that… then maybe don’t place blame on those who are willing and are trying… maybe it’s worth meditating on how you can drop expectations all together and uncover new ways within yourself to have a good time regardless of the setting…
There are countless gifts being exchanged across the world during this time of the year.
And I’m sure you have many gifts you’ll be exchanging as well.
A question: What gift are you most excited to give?
…And why?
Is it because of how personable it is? How hard it was to find? How much time/energy/effort went into making it/deciding on it?
Ultimately… the gift we’re most excited to give is the one we probably think is going to elicit the biggest emotional response.
Because at the end of the day, what we’re really after when we exchange gifts isn’t an item for another item… what we’re after is an exchange of emotions. Joy for joy. Gratitude for gratitude. Excitement for excitement.
Remember this not only as you’re giving gifts… but as you’re receiving gifts, too.
Sometimes, the best gift you can give has nothing to do with anything you bought… but rather has everything to do with the type of responses you give when you open something someone else bought you.
Nobody should be more in tune with your needs / desires than you.
And while a shiny new TV or a fresh pair of sneakers might be gifts at the top of your wishlist… there are needs / desires that supersede anything that gets wrapped in a box (or shoved in a bag with some tissue paper on top).
They are specific feelings / experiences that give us a sense of meaning / fulfillment and there’s six of them I want you to consider.
The first pair are certainty vs uncertainty. Too certain and our lives become mundane and vanilla. Too uncertain and we live overly anxious and chronically worried.
The next pair to consider are significance vs connection. When we feel too unique, special, important, different… we feel like outliers and struggle to connect deeply with others. When we feel too connected with others, we can lose our individuality and significance as an individual.
The final pair to consider are growth vs contribution. Focusing too much on growth is selfish—we ignore invaluable opportunities to use what we’ve developed to help others. On the other hand, focusing too much on contribution is counterproductive—we can only give back what we have or have built.
Ideally, we want to have a balance of all of the above in our lives.
The question is, which of the above needs the most work in yours?
Because once you’ve figured out that… the next step is to create the real wishlist. The one that focuses on the things you can do to improve that specific area… and includes the real gifts that’ll make the real dent in your life…
…And not just another person’s wallet.
I do this thing on weekends where I unintentionally stay up way later than usual.
It’s this weird self-sabotaging kind of behavior that’s fueled by this belief that going to bed early on the weekends is lame.
…And/or maybe it’s a reciprocal bounce in the opposite direction of my usual hyper-disciplined lifestyle.
…And/or maybe it’s because the weekends are when I allow myself some extra screen time and it always sucks me in longer than I originally plan.
None-the-less, no matter how exhausted I wake up the next morning or how many times I tell myself I’ll go to bed earlier the next weekend, I find myself zonked out on the couch at the same late times the following weekend.
What’s interesting is that either one, two, all, or none of the above mentioned reasons are at the root of this behavior.
And if I want to solve this challenge, I’ll need to identify the root first.
…Attacking the periphery is like trying to get rid of weeds by only cutting at what’s seen. And we both know that won’t do much to stop weeds from growing right back.
No.
What stops weeds from growing right back is attacking them at the root.
And oftentimes, like a well established weed, it isn’t always immediately obvious where the root is… but, once you’ve narrowed in on it… a focused tug or two is all it really takes to stop it’s continued existence altogether.
…Much better than cutting at what’s seen again and again and again.
P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.
One of my favorite holiday traditions is to Venmo $10 to 10 or so friends and include the following type of message:
“Take this and commit a random act of holiday kindness. Buy someone a coffee or pay for the person behind you in line (or pay it forward to another Venmo friend)… ‘Tis going to be a stressful week for many. Let’s make it a little better for a few.”
What I love about it so much isn’t just the random acts of kindness that get committed from the $10.
…It’s the amount of time each person spends thinking about how they’re going to commit their random act of kindness.
When this idea first made its way to me, the storyteller said her son was given $5 and a very similar message to what I typed above… and he spent 6 months thinking about how he wanted to make the world a little better with that $5.
…Talk about ROI.