“There is a big difference between having an opinion and being in the grips of an opinion.”
Eckhart Tolle
Relax
Personal Success
Evolving?
Peacocks (male peafowl) are believed to display their fantastic feathers in order to woo peahens. They are never aggressive in their courting…
which makes them smarter and better than (some of) their human counterparts.
Is That a Sheep?
I shared my drawing of llamas today with my fifth graders.
I got a rousing, “Not bad!”
For some reason, they loved yesterday’s 5 minute timed writing prompt:
“Describe how to drive your teacher crazy.”
Ahhhh. Kids.
Each morning, I open my drawing book, 20 Ways to Draw Everything. I make myself draw whatever is in front of me. I am always tempted to draw the easiest figures. I might start with the easiest, but I know that I will not get better if I stick to the simple ones. My initial goal was to draw all 20, but because I have only 45 minutes to draw before I go to work, I choose about six: a few easy, a few difficult.
It’s become my morning meditation.
Dawn Delight
It’s pre-sunset and I navigate the dark to the kitchen,
boil water, grind beans and allow the two to fuse in the French press
Open the drawing tablet and book – smile
choose a page arbitrarily and put pencil to paper
Embrace the Dark
the good thing about the night
is that morning always comes
perhaps if you hug your nightmares
and laugh in their face
they will shrink back
in fear of you
Are You a Fungi?
Mushrooms are like people: Some are nourishing and others are toxic.
C’est La Vie
Student Council member: “We didn’t get out Student Council t-shirts in time for Club Picture Day?”
Me: “No, they haven’t arrived.”
StuCo member: “Wow. That’s a problem. That’s a real issue.”
Me: “No, it’s not. We’ll get them when we get them. We will take our pictures wearing what we’re wearing and smile. It is what it is.”
At first blush, this sounds like a negative and cold response. But diving deeper, you can see that “It is what it is” is actually a great way to deflect negativity. Why stew about something that we cannot help? Why feel bad and see “no t-shirts” as a problem? There is no solution except to accept it, happily.
This doesn’t apply to areas where there might be a solution of course. I am a proponent of seeking creative solutions to any and all problems. But in cases where there is nothing to be done, why fret?
S
Hope
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus
Why Do People Cheat? Tony Robbins and Esther Perel #2*
More information from Tony Robbins’ podcast with Esther Perel on Infidelity:
- Infidelity is #1 reason for divorce in France, but not just because of cheating, but because the cheated believes their partner “fell in love with someone else.”
- Perel asks her cheating clients if they suffered a loss recently, such as the death of a loved one. Sometimes people try to fill that loss. It has nothing to do with their partner.
- People often do what they are allowed to do.
- That’s worth repeating: People often do what they are ALLOWED to do!
- If you find messages between your spouse and his/her lover, do not read all the messages. You will not be able to get them out of your head.
- Some questions to ask when you find out your partner cheated:
- How did this happen? Were you being safe? Why did this happen? Is there another child? Do I know this person? Is this person likely to come after us?
- Don’t ever make decisions based on the affair. Do not think your entire life is destroyed. You will need a good therapist who can help you contain the situation in the first month or two.
- What should people DO in this situation?
- Change your story, change your life.
- Is there any good in staying and working it out?
- You need to ask yourself if you’ve given what the other needs.
- We are willing to work really hard in business, in our work, but we expect our marriage to be easy.
- Show up. Do the right thing, even if it’s hard. No one who does the right thing ever regrets it.
- Stop being a pleaser.
- Ask for what you want.
- What if the worst day of your life became the best day of your life? (This is a Tony-ism)
- What can we learn from this? What did we neglect? What were we complacent about?
- You can’t change your partner. You can only change yourself.
- Ask questions that will reveal information about your partner. Don’t ask sordid questions.
- If you made mistakes in this relationship and you choose to move on, you will repeat your mistakes.
- Your partner never belongs to you. We all have the option to renew.
If you want to purchase Esther Perel’s book, The State of Affairs, you can go here.
Why Do People Cheat? Tony Robbins and Esther Perel #1*
I’ve been listening to podcasts. Many podcasts. My favorites are Tony Robbins and Optimal Living Daily. Recently, I heard Esther Perel on Tony Robbins and it was mind-blowing! I learned so much. I’m in a healthy marriage, but I know a lot of people are not. I thought I’d share some interesting tidbits here. Perel, by the way, is a relationship expert. She’s been studying relationships for 35 years. Esther is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She’s amazing and you can read more about her here.
The following information is from Tony’s podcast with Esther, Part II:
- It’s our differences that create passion.
- Triggers for affairs – Two main reasons:
- feeling neglected, loneliness, sexual frustration, a deadness inside (bad marriages)
- to feel “alive” – the absence of obligation and burden (good marriages). Not for sex, but for desire and aliveness.
- People having affairs are not looking for another partner, but a new “self”
- How to recover from an affair:
- acknowledge the pain you created with the affair (remorse);
- prove how much you want to stay – give back the value of your partner;
- help your partner understand why you did it (a list of hotels is NOT the answer);
- there can be no shame in staying
…to be continued…
*Tony Robbins Podcast October 18, 2017
