The Dalai Lama's Rules for Living

Sharing is caring! 

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
   1. Respect for self
   2. Respect for others
   3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Wendell Berry- The Sycamore

You know when you come across a new piece of art that you feel was personally written about you? Or even just speaks to you- whispers in your ear until the message seeps down into your soul?

That's how I feel about this beaut. Enjoy.

The Sycamore

In the place that is my own place, whose earth
I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
Hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark face.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.

Remember:

Here's to striving to be a better person!

Well-being Wants W

Being a holistically, humanistic oriented counselor always has me thinking about my own well-being. Not to mention that ever since I moved to the Big Apple my being it self has been all over the place, despite incorporating and focusing all these positive adjustments.

But I'm starting to wonder if I'm going about it all wrong.

Maybe, after all, it is not in my body's best interest to become wholly aligned. Maybe, I should stop focusing on achieving internal harmony and proudly help myself to that medium serving of french fries. Maybe, I should listen to what I want instead of believing what scientists and often-sued doctors have "proven" I should want.

Maybe, I should just let my body, mind, and spirit have whatever it wants- whatever that may be.

How do you live your life? Do you believe in moderation and/or alignment or do you "do what you want when you want!"?

J is to joie de vivre

Joie de vivre (French pronunciation: [ʒwa də vivʁ], joy of living) is a French phrase often used in English to express a cheerful enjoyment of life; an exultation of spirit. Joie de vivre


joie de vivrenounif there is one symbol that represents French society and its joie de vivre, it is theParis café: joyfulness, cheerfulness, cheeriness, lightheartedness,happiness, joy, gaiety, high spirits, élan, jollity, joviality, exuberance,ebullience, liveliness, vivacity, verve, effervescence, buoyancy, zest,zestfulness; informal pep, zing; literary blitheness. ANTONYMS sobriety,depression.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I first heard this phrase not too long ago and fell in love. Those French- always so clever with their abstract concepts-turned phrases. Then I thought about it. Why don't Americans have a translatable phrase for this? Oh that's right, because the American way is to live to work, not work to live.


Right now I can't say I'm much different, stuck balancing all these different identities in my life like many others. (Why do we create so many identities for ourselves? That's a whole other topic).


But it seems so obvious: the joy of living. How often do we fall ill and pronounce life-altering changes like, "when I feel better I'm going to be on top of the world..." and then end up reverting back to our old, over-consumed, preoccupied, stressed ways?


I know I can be guilty of this. Which is why I made one of my life-resolutions to start enjoying more, stressing less. After all, our life is composed of many "too beautiful a day not to share it with the flowers".




How often do you genuinely feel joie de vivre?




**And thank you everyone who sent well-wishes for my friend. She was just released from the hospital and sends her thanks as well!*

E is to Empathically Emote

"When you extract a splinter it hurts, briefly, but then you feel relief, even pleasure. When you find a fault in yourself it will hurt, briefly, but it you keep going and acknowledge the fault, you are likely to be rewarded with a flash of pleasure that is mixed, oddly, with a hint of pride. It is the pleasure of taking responsibility for your own behavior. It is the feeling of honor."

-Jonathan Haidt- The Happiness Hypothesis

Obvious: We are emotional creatures.
Not so obvious: Sometimes what we think are emotional reactions are really our brains interpretation of      them turning them into thoughts.
Semi-obvious: It's much harder to identify the fundamental emotion underlying said thoughts

Maybe all of the above statements are well-known facts, but I learned them the hard way (graduate program in mental health counseling anyone). Where you're graded on discovering emotional awareness, insight, and developing appropriate cognitive reactions in yourself in order to then help others.

And these emotional experiences affect our self-esteem (obvious). And this in turn affects are ability to empathize. We may confuse our own emotional/thought processes as an attempt to demonstrate to our friends we understand them, that we hear them.

But do we? Think about it. How often are you having a conversation with a friend when you say "Man, I feel your pain" but what you're really doing is rehashing your own experience and projecting it on to another? How often do you ask others how they are doing and let them get by with a simple "Fine, Great, How are YOU?"

My point is, we think of tend to think of emotions as a by product of life when the truth is that for most of us our emotions are unconsciously or not, the driving force maneuvering our thoughts, our actions, and broadly our overall existence. But we tune out, instead of tuning in creating barriers in communication.

And quite frankly, I think its time to start tuning in. Because if we can't figure our how we're feeling we're far from capable of empathizing with others and creating meaningful connections.

D to Do less doing

"If you do not change direction you may end up where you are heading" -Lao Tzu

What ever happened to the act of less is more? Specifically, doing less. But where should we draw the line as to what constitutes the positive aspects of "doing less"? They say the purpose of technology is/was to maximize our productivity: less effort into each project amounts to having Xtimes more projects to do.

These days quantity seems to surpass the importance of quality. We're glued to our smart phones because they hold our 10 different fancy apps for all of our different tasks because we've adapted to the paradox of consumerism so much so that we can't seem to decide what silly app is best for us. (Or maybe this is my personal experience when discovering the capabilites of my iPhone).

Where are we headed when are heads aren't even looking at our direction? We rely on GPS to get places instead of learning the routes. We use twitter to masturbate our need for "connection" in as few words as possible. We immerse ourselves into everything and anything because we want more more more with less effort, less thought, less emotion attached.

I'm all for doing less. But only if doing less leads to being able to relax- not doing more of everything else.

Here's to doing less.

C is for Character (istics)

character |ˈkariktər|noun1 the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual : runningaway was not in keeping with her character.• the distinctive nature of something : gas lamps give the area its character.• the quality of being individual, typically in an interesting or unusual way : the island is full of character. 

Personality is a rather fixed set of characteristics and traits. Some inherited others well, not so much. Sometimes, I feel as if I'm dramatizing my natural characteristics to fulfill certain personas. And there have been times when I have been described as "being a character".

But what characteristics compose my disposition?

Stubbornly adamant, slightly obsessive, passionately slothish, romantically motivated, sleepily hyper, shyly silly, whimsically catlike, cunningly witty.

I think about my closest friends and my family. People I encounter in random circumstances. Everyone is a character in their own right. And I wonder, is that because I've (or we've) made them out to be? Or is it safe to say their characteristics have crafted their own character?

"CatLady",  April 2011

What defines your Character?

B is Between Being Balanced

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.

— Vladimir Nabokov

I wanted to hold this post off until the last moment because I was struggling between deciding between balance and being. Here I am with the moments ticking still unsure of where to go, and where to find my own balance in being.

So I'm just going to Be. Being is such an effort. You know, really being. Being conscious of your thoughts, your emotions, your movements. It's easier to drift off and focus on space- or the absence of space in my mind. It's easy to be sucked into the vacuum that entails our daily existence. But it takes power to become aware of ourselves.

But Being is not just what we are as sentimentally propelled creatures. It's cyclical. We must be in order to become. We must become in order to be. And as we do so, we must maintain balance to bloom.

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart." 

-Elizabeth Gilbert

A is for Acceptance

"Ruin is the road to transformation" - E. Gilbert

Last night's meltdown was dramatic and long awaited. In retrospect, most of my life has been comprised of similar events. Which brings me to my point: no matter how many "self-help" books I read, and how much I study psychology in a partially vain effort to figure myself out, I will be stuck on this rickety, treadmill until I learn to and can fully (to my ability) accept myself.

I know, I know. Obviously not groundbreaking. But in the wee hours of this morning as I panicked about what my future may not hold and looked into the mirror and saw a face swollen with fear to the point of  masking my natural ethnicity with that of my Asian compadres due to torrential sobbing, it broke my ground.

I will always have meltdowns because it is MY nature. I will always experience my highs like a tsunami and lows crashing from the Empire State building into a sewer hole. I will always have a crabby, bratty streak to balance my empathic ears. I will always have an element of impulsiveness to challenge my yearning for stability.

Because this is me. And I can curb my cravings and endeavor to match the solidity of a bonsai. But I will accept my volatile nature. And learn to appreciate it.

Exercising at the gym does not an athlete make I

Empire State of Mind, Sunnyside 3/11

I just want to admit that despite efforts at becoming a healthier functioning person my "jog" on real terrain and freezing cold fresh polluted air burning inside my lungs this afternoon completely reality-slap-checked that notion right out of my mind.

Here's hoping my knee and flu-susceptibility are on my side in the morning.

Grow where you are planted

Yesterday morning I had an anxiety attack. I had woken up early to do homework but come 10 am I was a mess.

It dawned on me: why had I signed up for a boxing class? Why had I agreed on something in the late afternoon/early evening when my mind is manic and I'm clearest in the early morning? What was I doing signing up for a group class when I strongly dislike anything group related, much less something I'm not great at and is equally challenging?

Hours went by trying to force some kind of rationalization. "Michelle, this will be good for you. You'll socialize and get fit. You have to overcome your anxiety." But do I really? No! I tried to cancel my registration. And I fell into a gym trap, You know, when they try to offer you anything and everything to get you to stay. The manager went as far as asking me when was the last time I had been to the doctor.

Talk about rude salespeople.

Boxing:3, iPad:0

Exercise makes the heart grow...exasperated? The body...exhausted? Yes, I think so. After my "cardio" routine yesterday morning I decided to ask one of the trainers for some tips. This simple question led to an hour long private boxing lesson.

Last night I was pooped but nothing in comparison to what I felt this morning. All pain aside, it was really a fun experience. The trainer, Charlie, had me cracking up the entire time which led to a pretty intense ab workout in itself. Though I spent most of today unable to laugh/cough/sneeze/move anything involving mobility from my shoulders through my waist, it was worth it.

Enough so that I decided to enroll in his 8-week training program. Why?

1. I'm obviously in pretty pathetic shape
2. I'm a female... living in a major metropolis (self-defense)
3. Apparently, punching things is a good anger-management program in itself (AKA no more unnecessary outbursts at Jon)

On the other hand, I've been trying to come up with rational excuses to slap down money for an iPad. I've REALLY wanted one since last year.  But every reason I come up with I can negate, which is making it less and less likely. See, I just got a new iPhone last month because my old one broke (which I LOVE- as much as one can love an inanimate, non-being object). It was a necessity- or as much of a necessity buying a smart phone can be. But the iPad?

1. I can take it on the Europe trip instead of lugging around my laptop (but that's a 1-time stint)
2. I can take it to class instead of writing hand-notes I don't understand later or taking my laptop ( but I'll only be in school for 2 more months hopefully)
3. I can share it with Jon? (But Jon pretends to hate Macs and would probably "need" it on days I "need" it)
4. I can use that as a primary computer and my laptop as a storage device (But I just inherited Jon's old external hard drive so I really don't need that either)
5. I really WANT it (but I just splurged on this European vacation for Jon & I. And I obviously don't NEED it)

See, I'm kind of an impulsive spender and a great saver. I've been working since 16 out of both necessity and want (for my own independence). My spending habits reflect my overall dichotomous personality. But as I've matured I try to make my purchases more justifiable (see lists above). 

Decisions decisions. 

Boxing for the soul

Exercised this morning, slept all day
Gloomy rainy weather motivated laying around
That's all for now, the end.

(six word memoirs)

[edit: so tired, wrote this from my phone bc it was within reach]

Schools out for...spring!

Tonight marks my unofficial-official beginning of Spring Break. My last Spring Break for a while. As of this semester, I'm taking a sabbatical from education. I had originally planned on trudging on through a PhD program- I wanted to have it completed by my 30th birthday. But then this happened, causing me to  pause and reevaluate my life. Which is good, because it's something that needs serious consideration. I need to think about my next moves, something that I'm not too good at. I want to enjoy the doctoral experience. I want to make sure I find a program and a niche that fits me.

Everything happens for a reason.

Anyway. It's going to be bittersweet. Full of two papers, one outline, deep-Spring cleaning, working on my unfinished inspiration board & resolution chart, adventures to museums, mass resume emailing, a quick trip to PA, and hopefully reading Infinite Jest by this guy! (and a partridge in a pear tree?)

Phew!

“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose” -Charles Bukowski

As an imperfect being, we are I'm allowed to be off some days. We are I'm supposed to admit to being fallible. We are I am a walking pendulum.

But today was an extreme. I woke up a grump: I've been waking up by 5:00 AM naturally for the past week despite my efforts of sleeping in until 7:00. I snapped at Jon for taking up space. I roared at my mom for not being able to hear me through a windy phone call. I ridiculed myself at the gym. I whined about having to go to class and see a client.

I felt like Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown. Except the swirl of dirt was more like a shroud of crabbiness. And I could not stand myself.

Every time an outburst would escape, I tried to justify it by saying, "well I'm normally calm and have made so much progress on my overall stubbornness/bratiness/crabbiness I'm allowed to be grumpy some days". I was flaring at others for my own mood. But why the mood? I still have no idea. My afternoon was a bit less dramatic but I can't seem to understand where this explosion was originally lit.

Kind of ironic considering my happiness tips last night. Here's to a better day. Because after all, every day above ground is a good day.

"Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"- Voltaire

I like to read. I like to read as both a distraction and a grounding.  I like to read things that give tips on improving my well-being. After all, I've been on this quest for about four years. I don't discriminate- I read scholarly articles, scholarly books (Martin Seligman, The Hendricks etc.), magazine quips, and especially Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project.


Mrs. Rubin also sends out daily emails with links to articles among other fabulous resources. Last week I received this lovely bit. I think it's especially important because while they're not groundbreaking discoveries, they're easy implemented possibilities.


8 Tips for Feeling Happier During an Unhappy Time

1. Remind yourself of reasons to be grateful. When things look really dark, it's hard to feel grateful, but remembering what's good in your life can help put problems into perspective. I have a friend who recently suffered a big disappointment at work. She said to me, "As long as my family is healthy, I can't get too upset about anything." This may sound like hackneyed advice, but it's really true.

2. Remember your body. Take a twenty-minute walk outside to boost your energy and dissolve stress. Don’t let yourself get too hungry. Get enough sleep. Manage pain. When you’re anxious, it’s easy to stay up late and eat ice cream -- and that’s going to make you feel worse in the long run. It's very tempting to run yourself ragged trying to deal with a crisis, but in the long run, you just wear yourself out.

3. Do something fun. Temporarily distract yourself from the stress, and re-charge your battery, with an enjoyable activity. Watching a funny movie is a reliable way to give yourself a pleasant break, and listening to your favorite music is one of the quickest ways to change your mood. When my older daughter was in the intensive-care unit as a newborn, my husband dragged me off to a movie one afternoon -- and that few hours of distraction made me much better able to cope with the situation. Be careful, however, not to “treat” yourself by doing something that’s eventually going to make you feel worse (taking up smoking again, drinking too much, indulging in retail therapy). My comfort-food activity is readingchildren's literature.

4. Take action. If you’re in a bad situation, take steps to bring about change. If you’re having trouble with your new boss, you could decide to try to transfer. Or you could change your behavior. Or you could find ways to pay less attention to your boss. Ask yourself, "What exactly is the problem?" It's astounding to me that often, when I take time to identify a problem exactly, a possible solution presents itself.

5. Look for meaning. Re-frame an event to see the positive along with the negative. Maybe getting fired will give you the push you need to move to the city where you’ve always wanted to live. Maybe your illness has strengthened your relationships with your family. You don’t need to be thankful that something bad has happened, but you can try to find positive consequences even in a catastrophic event.

6. Connect with friends and family. Strong relationships are a KEY to happiness, so fight the impulse to isolate yourself. Show up. Make plans. Ask for help, offer your help to others. Or just have some fun (see #3) and forget your troubles for a while.

7. Make something better. If something in your life has gotten worse, try to make something else better – and it doesn’t have to be something important. Clean a closet. Organize your photographs. Work in the yard.

8. Act toward other people the way you wish they’d act toward you. If you wish your friends would help you find someone to date, see if you can fix up a friend. If you wish people would help you find a job, see if you can help someone else find a job. If you can’t think of a way to help someone you know, do something generous in a more impersonal way. For instance: commit to being an organ donor! When you’re feeling very low, it can be hard to muster the energy to help someone else, but you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel. Do good, feel good; it really works.

I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier.

Four more days. That's the last surge I need to endure. The beginning of this past week was so hectic, it took me three days to recover by being comatose, only alternating from my bed to the couch. Not to say that my mind has been a blank. On the contrary, I've had so many "inspiring" thoughts I didn't know what to do with them. I wanted to avoid long convoluted posts about 500 different things; I need to focus. (Challenge!)

Hence the lack of, well everything.

On the one hand, I wanted to stick to my resolution of writing daily. But I also had to remember my other resolutions to take time for me. It's a hard balance. Especially for myself because I'm the type to dance from each polarity (case in point).

I wasn't completely unproductive. I booked our European vacation. I tidied up my resume & cover letter to get ready to mass mail them this week. I even cracked open one textbook to catch up on 17 chapters worth of readings.

I might even try to make another post today to compensate. March madness indeed.

Be vulnerable.

Brene Brown- The power of vulnerability

"Learn to lean into discomfort"- BB

Great, enlightening talk. I realized just how overly vulnerable I am which, leads to the opposite effect of shutting down. I know it's a common scenario- we get hurt too much and too hard and in turn decide to avoid being available to others. Unfortunately this eventually leads to being unavailable to ourselves. At least in my case.

Funny, it took a few minutes of this video to help me realize that despite being in grad school for 1.5 years where I'm supposed to become aware of myself. Or I can say that thanks to the prodding of my academic program it has led me to the insight achieved by this clip; drove thought into action and mirrored my internal frame of reference into my external reality.  Yes, I'll stick with the latter.

Here's to being vulnerable.

Wake up kids, you've got the dreamer disease

Ever since I can remember I have had serious sleeping problems. Bordering on insomniac tendencies.

For the most part my sleep patterns mimic my mood patterns. I'll go 1-2 weeks where all I think about is sleep. Once I hit the mattress (or couch) I instantly conk out until the next morning. My alarm tries its best to do its duty once the sunshine comes around but it's usually unsuccessful. The other half of the month I spend dreaming about dreaming. I may fall asleep easily but I wake up with this intense need to rise at 3-3:30 AM and am unable to sleep again till the sun rises. It's pretty annoying- particularly in the short days of winter

My point about disclosing this was to go on about how I'm a morning person. Even when I sleep 2-3 hours a night. There is nothing I enjoy more than starting my day while every one else is fuzzily comatose. The mornings excite me. Night comes around and my brain is tired, my eye lids droop, and the level of my whineyness hits maximum potential.

So I don't know why I keep trying to post at night. It sucks. I sit at the screen and wonder why I'm doing this to myself at this time of night. To hold true to my resolution! But forcing myself to write isn't doing much for my motivation. Not to mention the fact that I wanted to do this to improve writing, not just whine.

We'll see. We'll see.