Life and Death

I was so proud of Sam, so taken back by her comfort. I was sobered by her ability - when it really comes down to the pain of things - to really be there for someone. To lay right down there with them and go through the thick of it with them.

I think of grief. The grief of my own loss, or of watching a loved one go through it, or of not necessarily losing someone but indirectly hurting someone who loves me. I think of all the heavy and light miscommunication in this world.

Grief is something you carry. It’s not quite something you move through. You learn where it fits, where it’s recurved the structure of your body. What parts of your skin ache when seated a certain way now. And respecting that. You find a new normal.

grief, inspiration, psychology, presence, motivation, appreciation, life, gratitude, deathMarisa MarulliDecember 22, 2016 Comments

Feeling It

Make space for the sadness, the grief, the loss and make space for the relief and the hope.

Sit down with these feelings and invite them into your home, into your mind. Let them be something else for you now.

Renounce whatever preconceptions you’ve had of them before, no longer believe there is something wrong with them. Make them something else. Allow them to be something else. It’s a simple as that. It’s almost too simple. Just play with the idea of giving them an alternate reality.

It’s hard because you go somewhere with it all. You go somewhere else with it. You take these feelings and you transform them into something else, you give them another identity. Meaning you’re not right where it is.

Happiness, LIVE

It's almost like some old feeling - some old teaching - is holding us back from it.

Maybe you can let yourself go to the happiness but then just minutes later you worry about the next thing. Maybe thoughts ring in your head: "You can be doing so much more with your time." "Did you have a productive day?" "What else can you be doing?" "That's not good enough."

Why don't we let ourselves have it?

Why are we not present for it?

Because we're so used to stressing and filling our every waking moment, our every break in thought.

So then how do we reverse this, how do we become present in our days? Present in our happiness?

Life, in Gratitude and Battle

In battles it’s important to build momentum. Physical practice is momentum for a marathon or a boxing fight. In the case of this mental battle, your mental momentum is gratitude for what you have done. Acknowledgement of your progress.

So we need to take a step back and give ourselves a pat on the back. Be grateful for everything we have come through. And everything we won’t stop fighting for. Everything we won’t stop fighting to become. Yes, maybe slowly. Maybe not grandly. Maybe not perfectly or clearly. Yes, maybe more quietly.

Right now it’s simply the little voice that says keep going. Yes, let’s be grateful for that.

The supermoon, the regular moon and you

This week’s supermoon is said to be the brightest moon us Earthlings have seen in about 70 years. Naturally, this occurrence has stirred our species’ long-standing questions about our connection to the moon: does it affect our moods, sleep cycles, menstrual cycles, reproductive patterns?

The moon has always been a major subject - permeating all races, species and time. Think about the age-old folklore of wolves howling at the moon, the English word "lunatic" (derived from Latin "luna" which means "moonstruck"), or Shakespeare’s Othello: "It is the very error of the moon, she comes more nearer the earth… and makes men mad..."

How to get settled in your life

There’s a Danish concept named “hygge.” Pronounced “hoo-ga,” hygge is one of those special foreign words that describes a feeling we have no words for in English.

Essentially, hygge is the sense of wellbeing one feels from being settled in his home. It’s about coziness; think, candles that are actually lit, Pandora’s Acoustic Coffeehouse station, string lighting and good aromas. Hygge has a strong yet intimate interpersonal element to it as well.

A hygge home would host comfortable get-togethers with hot chocolate or appetizers, just because.

How do you start over?

How do you start again? How do you make another attempt to do something that you didn’t follow through with the first time?

How do you fight that battle in your mind that you didn’t finish it the first time? Well, let’s start there: let’s take a good look at “finishing.” What exactly does that mean to you; where is the finish line?

Is there one, concrete moment of this goal’s accomplishment that is finite and then ends, or is your goal a less-tangible upkeep of a particular way of life. It’s important to take a good look - right now - at exactly what you want.