WHEN DO YOU FEEL BEST ABOUT YOURSELF?

My New Jersey family sent me a book of writing prompts for Christmas, 52 Lists for Togetherness (Sasquatch Books, Seattle).  I was surprised that they knew me so well.  It's hard to pick the right book for someone else. Many of the writing prompts are about connections, ways to love, respect, admire and appreciate those around us. I don't resonate to all the lists, but to many I do.  Here are a few you may want to have a go at:

• List the Friends, Family, Coworkers, Mentors and Others who come to mind when you hear the word Community.
• List everything you feel grateful for at this present point in your life.
• List the ways your life is different now from how it was one year ago.
• List the mantras or guiding words you want to live by.
• List the things that you prefer to do alone.
• List the lessons you have learned from people older than you.
• List the ways you would describe yourself to someone who wants to get to know you at your core.  What unique qualities make up your being?
• List the places where your most significant relationships grew. 
• List the things that make you feel loved and supported by others.
• List the ways you like to love and support others.
• Chose someone close to you and list the times you have seen them at their happiest. 

Each list item then has an Action bullet, like "choose a relationship to focus on," or "share the words that guide you with someone who is struggling," or "decide how best to raise the happiness quotient of someone close to you the next time they're blue" and so on. It's a nice project to begin the day or end it.  

One of the Lists sparked a conversation with another couple.  The prompt is, "List when you feel best about yourself."  I said "When I feel loved."  The two men in the conversation both picked occasions of professional success, recognition or competence.  The other woman picked something related to her pride in her family.  She and I are also professionals but neither of us said we feel best when we do our jobs particularly well.  

Someone said the question felt manipulative.  But there's no right or wrong answer.  Everyone is different. We receive society's conditioning differently and are raised differently.  Our answers may vary from year to year as our life experiences grow.  A sampling of 4 yields no conclusions. But I am interested in thinking about the answers.  Strangely, I found a poem that fits my own choice, just ran across it when reading another book.  The poem is by Raymond Carver (1938-1988) who died of lung cancer.  Called Late Fragment, the poem reads,

And did you get what

you wanted from this life even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Carver wrote the poem while he was dying, the final poem in his last published work.  It is inscribed on his tombstone.  I am new to Carver's work, but I have learned that brevity is a hallmark of his.  Did you get what you wanted from this life even though you're dying? he's asked.  "I did" he says with confidence. He is a man beloved.  I like his contentment and assurance.  Feeling himself beloved on earth brings peace.  No wonder this short poem was chosen for his grave. 

It's good to know ourselves, isn't it?  And to find others, even a long dead American poet, who feel the same.  Are you in the mood to try one of the prompts?  Or create your own?  They don't take long.  Nina Naomi

 

 

  

"NO IS A COMPLETE SENTENCE"

I could be quoting Annie Lamott or Psychology Today or Mindful.org or Megan Le Boutillier or any number of sources or people.  I could be quoting my Dad when he wondered what my teenage self didn't understand about "no."  

But there's another kind of "no," the no that's needed when we're deciding how to spend our time.  After all, what else is irreplaceable, limited and will cease at an unknown point? The Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC-65AD) said to guard it as we would our most precious possession. I know I don't do that.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who ended his days in a concentration camp, said that "Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavour, enjoyment, and suffering."  Most of us don't wish we had more time to suffer, but we know what he means: time spent grieving is time wisely spent, time spent empathizing is time wisely spent, likewise time spent sharing another's sorrow.  

There are times, though, when we must say no.  These include the times some of us are tempted to say "yes" because our culture prizes busy-ness, or because we see people on social media whose lives seem curated to perfection.  Or in a work setting, because we are trying to get ahead, build a business or reputation, or just stay afloat, and we are afraid to turn down any opportunity.  Not FOMO exactly, but perhaps a lack of faith in ourselves or our future if we take a moment to breathe.  As a lawyer, it took a long time for me not to answer the question "How are you?" with anything other than "Busy" or worse, "Super busy," whether it was true at the moment or not. Busy had status.

We should strive, experts say, to say "no" without guilt, even when the alternatives we are choosing are doing something for our self or doing nothing at all.  We don't have to explain.  "No I can't" or "No I'm already over-committed" is enough.  This leaves no room for challenge or pressure.  

Saying "no" to ourselves can also be part of our self-care.  Creating protective boundaries not only for others to observe but for us to respect as well.  Like saying "no" to apps that send us alerts multiple times a day.  Or "no" to obsessively checking our email (yes even work email). Or to checking our phone before we've gotten out of bed.  It's a way to choose how we spend our time.  A way to remember it's not always something that matters.  We matter too. 

Seneca talks about how one who borrows the smallest, cheapest item acknowledges the debt but even the most grateful cannot repay the time they have taken from us.  Nor can we reclaim the time we have given away.  So if tomorrow is a work day or school day we set our alarms.  For what is already scheduled we hope we have made good choices, that we would utter the same "yes" or "no" again.  For what is to come let us make choices that we don't regret, either now or in the future.  Let us fearlessly recognize that "No is a complete sentence." This is something we can work on; it would be time well spent, wouldn't it?                
                                                             Wishing us all Success, Nina Naomi

LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION

When you meditate you can also notice the softer

more subtle thoughts that you usually race past.

 

This morning I had time for a guided loving-kindness meditation.  A chance to enrich my fledgling meditation practice.  I needed it.  I'm still home recovering from a major surgery. That's why I had the morning free. You can find free audio resources for mindfulness meditation at www.Mindful.org.  "Healthy Mind, Healthy Life," that's the motto of Mindful.  

Because I rely upon God for help and guidance, I try to integrate my faith into my meditation and mindfulness practice.  Although I'm a beginner, it's not too hard to do.  In fact, I feel like it comes naturally. When I am focusing on my breathing I remember that it is God who created me, who gives me breath, who I call upon when I am anxious, distressed or afraid.  When I move from my breath to a body scan, I thank God for each part of my aging body.  In fact, we can thank God for age itself, for not leaving this precious earth before our time. 

I've practiced Yoga for years, but taken only one 10 week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) course at Duke Integrative Medicine, signed up for a full Day of Meditation, and later a 3-Day Urban Retreat.  So, yes, a beginner.  But perfect after any of our 'Big' birthdays, or during life transitions (empty nests, job changes. . .), or after traumas or griefs or betrayals or anything that needs healing.  I've learned that much already.   

Today's guided meditation began with a focus on ourselves and on someone who loves us.  My mother I thought, or my husband, but finally chose God.  That kind of unconditional love fit the meditation.  Having God say to me, "May you be happy, may you be safe, may you be protected.  May you be free from pain [yes! I need that!], may you have health and well-being as much as is possible. . . . "  I know God doesn't promise these, not health, not freedom from pain or suffering; rather God promises to share our afflictions.  But I do believe that God wants wellness for us, wants safety for us, wants health and happiness for us.   

I always add, "May you be kind."  I want that for myself as well.  All these loving-kind wishes, for me and then as the meditation goes on, from me to others, and out into the world.  So much wonderful hope in this meditation.  Feeling the love of someone else for you; or of God for you; or you for yourself; or yourself for others. . . .

I am working to find more time for this each day.  I have tomorrow's guided meditation picked out:  "A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Boost Compassion" created by Dr. Emma Seppala of Stanford University.  How can we lose, each of us, our compassion out-flowing into our families and communities and from there to who knows where?  I am going to try.  Nina Naomi

HEALTHY ATTITUDES (THE HUSTLER)

I read an article called "The Anti-Hustle" by Paige Leigh Reist in Bella Grace magazine, www.bellagracemagazine.com. It made me think.  

For me the word hustle has negative connotations.  It doesn't conjure up working hard for a good cause or giving of one's self to help others.  It doesn't even project multi-tasking to get the job done.  What Reist describes is "turning every . . . interaction, relationship, interest and activity into some sort of promotion or business venture."  Exhausting and inauthentic, she says. 

I've alluded to the inauthentic in other Healthy Attitudes posts.  I am not talking about a business website or blog where every person who clicks knows they are being sold a product.  They want the product, that's why they're clicking. They want details and testimonials and reviews.  They are shopping!  

I am talking about turning your life into a catch-all popularity and profit center.  The kind of blog or twitter account where the writer has something to sell but couches the sale as "Let's be friends." "I'll be in fill-in-the-blank this weekend and I hope you're there, love to meet you." "I freakin' love so-and-so on my podcast and hope you will too!"  "I can't catch my breath.  It's our 2nd season!"  "Guess what?  My book is now on Kindle for $2.99." These are real quotes.

Reist describes the detriments and rewards this kind of marketing brings. She carries a lot of embarrassment, she confesses, over what she's done "all for the sake of a few more followers or page views."  "And God," she continues, "the worst part is that it's so addicting when it works.  Validation! Popularity! Financial compensation!  The promise of becoming one of the elite, fabled influencers!"  

And then, Reist laments, "[t]hat sinking feeling when the high wears off."  When the book is $2.99 I suppose, or the guests on Season 2 aren't quite up to the guests on Season 1, or the number of listeners drops off.   All so predictable.  Then the hustle has to move up a notch.  Less time between promotional tweets, more fawning over followers, more build-up of guests.  More pretense that the relationship between writer and reader or podcaster and listener is something other than the one person selling something to the other. 

So, what is healthy and what isn't?  Sharing ideas and photos, that's healthy.  Inspiring others, that's healthy.  Openly selling our crafts, illustrations, textiles and other creative endeavors, that's healthy.  Sharing thoughts, recipes, decluttering tips, the wonders of nature.  Or something more serious:  hopes and dreams and disappointments, the benefits of mindfulness or of meditation or of prayer.  People from around the world spending a few moments with one another.  Remember when we couldn't do that?  How much poorer we were then. The list of what's healthy is long.

What isn't healthy?  Tweets that are one humble brag after another are not healthy. Bragging is not healthy. Disguising marketing as friendship or as helping others is not healthy.  Being disingenuous is not healthy.  For example, if a writer selling a book about her illness is now cancer-free, omitting that from an op ed is not healthy.  That should be shouted from the rooftops.  Readers deserve to know that you are not at death's door, that your widely-publicized prayers have been answered, that they can admire you--if they want--for something other than your personal response to this all-too-common disease. 

It's all about honesty, isn't it?  If my legal services are available I quote my rate and tell you what I can realistically accomplish. It's a business relationship. I have a business web site.  It's a bonus if along the way we become friends. But I don't lure you to my law office with the plea, "Be my friend." 
 
The article by Paige Reist sent me to her lovely blog, "The Wholesome Handbook."  She reminds us that in our professions we all make industry relationships, we use social media and we hone our crafts.  We're all creative, sending bits of our selves out into the world where we want them to succeed.   But we're not here to sell ourselves to others, to use tragedy for personal gain or to become a brand or message. Pay attention, Reist says, to how often we do things with the intention of being noticed.  I like that.  That's a healthy attitude!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Washington Duke Inn, Durham, NC

This holiday has been amazing.  My first one ever without driving from store to store.  I've hosted some twenty-five Christmas dinners for family--many of them chaotic--and chosen nearly all the gifts my husband and I give.  It's something I like doing. But because of surgery and a long recovery I can't drive or brave the mall crowds.  I can't bend, lift or twist.  Not yet.  I've missed the band concerts, the Christmas Oratorio, Sunday church, restaurant crowds, the annual faculty dinner dance, the craft fairs, The Nutcracker performance, Handel's Messiah, and all the other festive events. My husband's been on overtime helping me. I'm at home healing.  With my thoughts, a lovely tree, music playing and the dog for company.  And with the friends who visit, bring food and share meaningful conversations. Nine weeks and counting. Amazingly it's been an enriching time.

So now it's almost Christmas. I hope that everyone else has enjoyed their preparations, the ups and downs, the shopping, the Christmas pageants and all the rest.  I hope that travelers are safe.  I hope that the turkey is bought or the ham ordered or the beef marinating, the oysters, the yams and potatoes, the brussel sprouts or green beans and all the sides at the ready.  That there's enough wrapping paper and tape for even the latest shopper.  And that everyone who wants to has time for church on Christmas Eve, the greeting of friends, the sharing of peace, the bell choir, trumpet and flute, the carols, the welcoming of the baby Jesus and the quiet rendition of Silent Night as candle lights candle, sopranos hitting the high notes with ease.  May we help the poor, pray for the sick, show compassion to all and find salve for our fears and disappointments in the coming of the Christ Child.

SLEEP IN HEAVENLY PEACE

SLEEP IN HEAVENLY PEACE

 ♰

Duke Chapel

                                                                           MERRY CHRISTMAS
                                                                              Nina Naomi






 

"FIND YOUR INNER CALM"

When our children were young mindfulness was the last thing on my mind; mindlessness was more like it.  Even past the toddler stage.  Where's money for the book fair? Where's that permission slip? Where's my homework?  Where are my boots? Can someone pick me up?  I have flute lesson tonight.  I have drum lesson.  It's church youth group.  Every parent knows this drill.  Working parent[s], kids, pets and then add the wonderful holiday season.  

I would have rushed past the idea of an inner calm.  Who had the time?  And mindfulness was not even a fad, let alone a movement.  I know there are readers at this stage in their lives.  Not many, because who at this stage has the time to read?  On the other hand, I see inspirational mommy-bloggers who help other moms feel less alone, less isolated.  Some are natural comedians. All are super-moms in my opinion. I read as many as I can.  

Why bring this up?  Well, because the holidays are laden with memories. Memories piled as high as gifts on Santa's sleigh.  Because my husband and I are sifting through memorabilia to create family treasure boxes for the grandchildren. Because so many of our Christmas decorations were made by a child.  And because all of my favorite magazines, the ones filled with Christmas crafting ideas, are reminding me to find my inner calm. 

So, I'm going to count my blessings and do it.  First, the blessings.  We made it through that early period of our lives. We're being recycled as grandparents, but we're not in charge.  Our role is limited:  school pick-up, enjoying a band concert, supporting school fund-raisers, sleepovers and lots of unconditional love.  So I have time for mindfulness, for seeking inner calm.

Other blessings.  Yesterday my two teenage grandsons paid a surprise visit while I'm still recovering from surgery.  Their surprises used to be scaring me to death.  Jumping out from behind something or other.  I'm great at feigning scared, aren't you?  It seems to be a grandma's  job requirement. But yesterday's visit was truly welcome. Nothing is better than seeing the love between these boys. 

More blessings.  With me s t i l l housebound from my surgery I thought we would have a lonely holiday season.  Far from it.  So many wonderful friends have made sick-calls.  Most bring soup or bread or a poinsettia.  Some have brought whole meals and joined us to eat them.  One of my friends today bathed Mr. Wiggles for me!  Can you believe that?  Our stinky little boy needed a bath and she corralled all 10 pounds of him and left him fragrant and soft. 

Then she brought in some outdoor pot-plants that needed saving.  Of course I immediately had negative thoughts about myself.  Have I paid visits and brought food and good cheer when others have been sick?  But mindfulness says "banish that inner critic."  So I did.  Thank you friends for sharing tea and cookies, for listening to my tales of recovery, for relieving my husband so he can do all the errands that pile up at Christmas.  And bathing Mr. Wiggles. Now that goes above and beyond! 

So I would say that I have found my inner calm.  Being in a recovery mode has eliminated all the hassle of the season.  Friends and family have picked up the slack everywhere.  The trick will be to retain that inner calm when my recovery is finished and I no longer need the help that has been so freely given.  What has been your experience?  How do you reach and maintain an inner calm?  I want to know everyone's secrets.  In peace, Nina Naomi

GRATEFUL FOR A SNOWY DAY!

I woke up to a beautiful new fallen snow.  It kept falling all day.  Still at sundown it falls.  Our power flickers but we are ready with flashlights, candles and matches.  We baked apples and roasted a chicken earlier in the day to eat hot or cold.  We have left-over beef/bison/lamb meatloaf for cold sandwiches. And chilled cranberry sauce that goes with everything. We've cozied-up in the bedroom with an aromatic cedar fir candle burning.  

We brought in Mr. Wiggles' bed so he will feel safe when the power goes out and all the devices start beeping--smoke alarms, microwave, printer . . . .  We're ready for a cold dark night. 

I have socks by the bedside, a Shetland cardigan, a robe and an old wool shawl.  We will read and write until the power goes out.  

After all-day flickering we know the routine.  The snow that has been weighing down the power lines turns to ice.  Somewhere, somewhere a line comes down and 350 homes lose power.  Then another and 350 more homes lose power.  Then another. Just like dominoes. 

We have enough wood for a fire.  

But it's the North Carolina Piedmont.  Our floods and hurricanes are worse.  Snow is temporary and most of us love it.  By day-after-tomorrow the sun will shine.  The snow, the dark, the food, the candles, the warm duvet, the wonderful men and women who work on the power lines--for all this I am grateful.  For all this I am glad.  

I am betting there is joy in your winter too!