“Punching In A Dream” by The Naked and the Famous is a staple on my running playlist. It’s especially perfect when you’re halfway through a hard hill, or in a particularly gloomy mood about, well, life (it happens). I’ve sung the line, “I don’t ever want to be here,” under my breath more than a… Continue reading
For the last month I’ve been telling anyone who will listen about The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion, a book by Elle Luna. In it, Elle encourages those who feel a deep sense of discontent to start choosing the musts in their lives and being more aware of the shoulds; the expectations that you feel from society, family, even friends.
As a typical oldest, must-please-everyone child (now adult), I’ve let the shoulds have a lot of control over my life: I should always have a job, I should be a good student, I should have a tidy home, I should be successful (society’s definition, not mine), I should know what I want to do with my life, I should make decent money, I should be the best wife/friend/daughter that ever existed, I should have a lot of friends, I should want X, Y and Z. Saying them out loud, I realize how silly they sound. But they are incredibly powerful–don’t be fooled.
In the books’s intro, Elle writes:
All too often, we feel that we are not living the fullness of our lives because we are not expressing the fullness of our gifts.
“The trouble is, you think you have time.” – Buddha
There is a not-so-distant time of my life where these words would have put me into a panic to do more, not less.
I would have tried to make it all happen at once. I would have gone on a “doing” spree. But luckily these words came into my life at a time where my body and my mind were both telling me to slow the “F” down, and all the doing was making me miserable.
I recently spent two much-needed weeks in Hawaii recovering from severe burnout and evaluating where I am and where I want to go. I didn’t have the big-magical-Hollywood-life-changing epiphany that I expected while listening to the lull of the ocean or deep in a hip-opening asana. But I did discover something far more meaningful and… Continue reading
Yesterday I was driving on I-10 heading west toward Santa Monica, where I live, when it struck me that I had no idea what the speed limit was. I was going the speed of traffic as usual (which in Los Angeles seems to be either zero or 75). I’ve lived here for two years, taking… Continue reading
A very wise woman recently asked me, “How do you want your life to feel?” Hmmm. She had me stumped. How did I want my life to feel? I’d never been asked that before. I’ve always been focused on what I wanted my life to look like: a career, a husband who is also my best friend,… Continue reading
#BeWell is a weekly roundup of inspiring, thought-provoking, and fun articles to help/inspire/motivate you to cultivate the well in your life. I am a compulsive email checker in recovery. There is nothing that important or urgent happening in my life that I need to check my email every five minutes. If something urgent does happen, I’ll assume… Continue reading