Encourage

Saving love

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Sometimes it’s easy to respond in love. People are kind; you’re kind in return. Someone is generous to you; you pay it forward to someone else.

But sometimes it isn’t easy at all. Sometimes it feels like the world is on fire, and everyone is rushing around thinking only of saving themselves. You feel vulnerable, exposed, in danger. You are on emotional high alert, alarms clanging. What then?

It is in these times, that any shows of love shine like light in darkness. Focusing on expressing your love gives the people you care about safe harbor. Focusing on being gentle with the people around you can calm the tide.

It’s OK to struggle.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Sometimes life is hard. Really hard. Relationships falter. Obstacles seem insurmountable. And just getting to the next day feels overwhelming. At times like these, we have to remember that it is OK to struggle.

We don’t have to be perfect. We do not need to have all the answers. Sometimes all we have are questions. But that is often a good place to start. And then we begin again, one foot in front of the other, perhaps not seeing the whole path ahead, but just enough to know where to put each foot.

“Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Uncomfortable? Yes. Exhausting and overwhelming and painfully hard? Yes. But not impossible. And it won’t necessarily feel this difficult and debilitating forever. You’ve made it through similar hard things before. You’ve survived every single bad day and every obstacle the universe has ever thrown at you. You’ve survived all the things you felt convinced would break you. Every single one. And this is evidence that you can make it through this too.

“You don’t have to figure everything out today. You don’t have to solve your whole life tonight. And you don’t have to tackle everything at once. You just have to show up and try. You just have to focus on the most immediate thing in front of you. And you have to trust that you’ll figure out the rest along the way. It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed. And its okay to make mistakes. You’re still learning how to navigate this new path. It’s going to take time, and you’re allowed to give yourself that time. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get all A’s or be the best version of yourself or outperform everyone else. All you have to do is show up and try. It’s always been enough before. It will be enough this time too.”

— Daniell Koepke

Here’s to you finding the light to take that next step, and then the next and the next, until your path leads you out of this present darkness. It is OK to struggle.

Stand where the light is shining.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Sometimes, when we feel down, we need to evaluate the input coming into our lives. Are we steeped in negativity? Maybe not just news, but the vitriol that follows it in the comments? The political back and forth can get ugly and pull us down. And then we can think about the friends we surround ourselves with. Are they upbeat, trying to make things better, or always complaining?

And, while we don’t want to retreat from fighting the good fight or the friends who are going through a rough patch, it’s so easy for people to tear things down, to find the flaws, to make a conflict, and, when we are around that kind of energy constantly, we can feel beaten down.

But, there is good news to be had, and there are positive people and opportunities to be found. Sometimes we need to focus our attention there, if only for a break from the storm.

Dirty the paper gently.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Some kids can’t not doodle. Or fidget. Or tap their pencils. What a delight it is when that person has a teacher, parent, or mentor who sees that as a gift rather than a bother.

Like this beautiful story about a kid who tapped, and the principal who recognized the percussionist hidden inside. “You’re not a problem; you’re a drummer.” Can you imagine the difference that one comment made in that young kid’s life?

Or this about the kid who doodled…on walls, and was hired to decorate the walls of a restaurant.

Photo credit: Greg Whale

So much of life is perception, of seeing the promise in the problem. These lucky kids had adults who saw something amazing and unique in them where others may have seen only pests. And that made all the difference. How can we adjust our eyes to see the promise in the problem and encourage those people rather than let them us? How can we be the ones to make that kind of impact on a kid who might be struggling?

Awe inspires.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

When we lose our way or feel overwhelmed, we can return to nature and be renewed. Hear the birds singing their spring song. Watch them collect twigs and bits for their nests. See the long grass ripple in a gentle wind like ocean waves. Breathe in the sweet earthy fragrance of the morning. Feel small and surrounded by an amazing, complicated system that has been pulsating with life for millions of years. That awe is good for us:

“It has long been established that a healthy diet and lots of sleep and exercise bolster the body’s defenses against physical and mental illnesses. But the new study, whose findings were just published in the journal Emotion, is one of the first to look at the role of positive emotions in that arsenal.

“That awe, wonder, and beauty promote healthier levels of cytokines suggests that the things we do to experience these emotions—a walk in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art—has a direct influence upon health and life expectancy,” says UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner, a coauthor of the study.”

Breathe in the day, full of life and possibility. Breathe out the stress, the worry, the defeat. In. Out. In. Out. In.

The heart of a child

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Do you remember what it is like to look at the world through a child’s eyes? When magic, wishes, and hope are as real as the miracle of the sun coming up each day? When trust is the default response? When everything is filled with wonder? How lucky we are to have children to bring us back to that time we better understood the world because now we’ve gotten too serious to appreciate or even see the mystery.

Cultivating gratitude

Posted on by Shari Swanson

In this beautiful film set to the words of Brother David Steindhl-Rast, you can’t help but see much of what makes life good and affirming. What if we learn to appreciate each day as if it is our first day…and our last? What if we appreciate each miracle as it presents itself to us throughout the day…the miracle of sight, of running water, of food, of laughter? What then?

The incredible power of community.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Blue Blueberries Food Fact Facebook Post

In 1943, President Roosevelt had several competing problems to solve; his answer: Victory Gardens. Author Elisa Carbone (Diana’s White House Garden) describes the amazing bit of history this way:

The World War II Victory Garden plan grew out of necessity. There was not enough steel and tin to make both fighter planes and tin cans for vegetables. There were not enough train cars to carry soldiers to the ports and to send food around the country. And with Japan controlling the islands where most of the world’s rubber plants grew, there was not enough rubber for tires for trucks to carry food from the farms to the cities.

The Roosevelts’ plan was a resounding success. In every city and town, vacant land was turned to food production. City parks, suburban and urban yards, vacant lots, and even apartment rooftops were used to grow fruits and vegetables. An estimated 20 million gardens were planted in the  U.S., producing between 9 and 10 million tons of food, over 40 percent of all the produce eaten in the United Sates. Community centers offered classes in canning, and the harvest was put away to feed the country during the winter as well.

This bit of history is remarkable in so many ways. Success depended on wide-spread buy-in from the total population based on their shared concern for and desire to support the troops and win the war. The solution wasn’t based on borrowing or over-spending but directly resulted from an honest appraisal of scarcity. People stepped up, across all divides. The solution stemmed from a deep recognition of the interrelatedness of things. People welcomed the opportunity to help. Each of those facts is powerful alone, but together, it marks a remarkable time in history.

What could we do today with buy-in like that among an entire populace? Can we even imagine anymore what it would feel like to be part of a country where everyone was looking for a way to help a global problem by making changes and contributions at a local level? In 1943, the impetus for the action was a desire to feed the troops and help win the war. What will we care enough about to pull together now?

Home is a place we all must find.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

ache

Something there is in each of us that longs for home, that place where we are welcome and accepted and known. Yet in this world of constant mobility and displacement (often involuntary), that feeling of home remains elusive. What if that feeling of home is something we can activate ourselves and bring to ourselves and others? What if we could make everyone feel a bit more at home?

‘Home’ is more than just a place. But what is it really?

 

In Willie Baronet’s TEDx talk last year, he quoted Glinda from the Wiz: ”Home is a place we all must find, child. It’s not just a place where you eat or sleep. Home is knowing. Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage. If we know ourselves, we’re always home, anywhere.”

What can we do today to bring that feeling of home to everyone we meet?