“Thinking of every venture, every project as an experiment is a great way to go through life. It lowers the stakes. It minimizes the downside. It lets you take a shot on something that otherwise might be way too intimidating.” - Ryan Holiday (Ventures seen as adventures also can be helpful.)

Thank you for free smiles on a rainy walk. Strangers seemed to give them not as courtesy but as expressions of glee.

Thank you for our last family outing with Peaches. 

Thank you for the feeling (in between cranky episodes) that my heart is spilling over with forgiveness since she’s been gone. She gave me that, and I want it for others.

Thank you for the Peaches in me and the Peaches in you. We’re all a little bit Peaches!

Thank you for Surviving Death episodes one and six (a Sister recommendation).

Thank you for space to adjust to this new life. It is kind of sad and in some sense lonely but hopeful, too.

Thank you for the realization that decisions up my anxiety. Whether about treatment options for my girl or chocolate bars at the store, I get nervous. Pressure added onto each choice then clouds what’s going on. It contributes to regret. Calm, as usual, is an antidote extending clarity to those critical moments.

Thank you for wandering thoughts on long walks.

Thank you for friends texting song links last week for no special reason. 

Thank you for the clunk of the teacup on the nightstand. 

Thank you for fresh ginger tea.

Thank you for all that’s magical in life. Thank you for belief in more than our eyes see. Thank you for guidance.

Thank you for dreams recorded and reviewed. Thank you for when loved ones visit us in dreams.

Thank you for miracles.

Thank you for coherence.

Thank you for summer plans taking shape. On the list is a meditation retreat and visiting friends, if they’re up for it. A trip to CA, too.

Thank you for a possible new career path to experiment with.

Thank you for that actor’s quick no and long yes: "Before I say yes to anything...I give myself about 2 weeks in each frame of mind—yes I'm in, no I'm out—and then I measure what keeps me up at night.”

Thank you (again) for distance from a stifling career to reset self-esteem, curiosity, and compassion—which takes time. Thank you nonetheless for friends and experiences gained in that chapter.

Thank you for a definition of success including personal wellness. Beyond having a positive impact indulging passions, a successful me moves most days and sleeps well most nights. She’s outdoors often. And, of course, connects (honestly) with others…

Thank you for the gentle ways of Peanut Bob. I call him that because he’d walk up Mulholland tossing breakfast to the blue birds. He’s part of what makes the place special.

Thank you for vivid flashbacks of cycling canyon roads not measuring distance or speed, just enjoying. That may be how dogs feel cruising with their heads out the window—freedom!

Thank you for my sobriety and healthy eating journeys. Let’s focus on the latter. I used to be kind of addicted to sodas and fast food—Taco Bell, Burger King, Carl’s Jr., In and Out… The attachments took years to loosen, and old ways attract me still, even the substances. But tugs in that direction are met with awareness of downsides. Plus the benefits of life now are too good. I’m grateful to be somewhat even-keeled. The pleasure beyond passing moments is truer. I face the world with a little straighter spine. Mornings feel fresher. My body is “lighter” and clean and mind enjoys clarity. Thank you for a freer way to be.

Thank you for irreverent offerings of wisdom like this endurance cyclist’s take on opportunity in adversity.

Thank you for heartfelt exchanges with my shero sisters. Thank you for the good fortune to use the plural.

Thank you for care we put into ourselves. As I tend to my suffering, yours diminishes, and vice versa. Every step back is a lesson. Every step forward is a victory.

Thank you for heart-to-hearts with myself when missing a loved one. Feeling powerless due to the circumstances, I urge myself to trust. Practice love. Be patient. Surrender to the unknown and appreciate its gifts.

Thank you for a related thought about giving up control: If we’re growing and learning, then maybe our futures will look different from what our past (more limited) selves envisioned. The future may exceed our visions in ironic ways. It may also reveal value in what we previously didn’t appreciate. 

Thank you for trials and errors, experiments, and leaps of faith. 

Thank you for love as a catalyst of unbounded wonders.

 
 

Thank you for future neighbors. Thank you for enough like-minded folks in the park to form a community of care. Thank you for its bohemian bent, for its meditators and vegans, its gardeners and outdoor adventurers. Thank you for the international contingent that would rather have less and live more. Thank you for the lower-income families enjoying greater freedom than the city affords. Thank you for the animal lovers and nature worshippers. Thank you for the old-timers aging healthily in place amid youngsters roaming free. Thank you for the proud owners of long silver locks. Thank you for the givers of warm hugs. Thank you for a region touched by tragedy recovering together. Thank you for the dream I didn’t realize I had coming true.

Thank you for another dream telling me love and happiness aren’t always how we may assume. 

To me a color of happiness is yellow—light and bright. This dream showed several yellows in a less than wonderful context. For instance, a strand of ultra smooth and glowing Barbie hair grew impossibly long from my head. Only it hadn’t actually grown there. It had been attached as I slept (by a schmoozy acquaintance who for some reason also pressured me to sign a contract). 

You could interpret the extension as a symbol of goods or ideas peddled by convention. It weaves them into our heads. Too many of us were raised on those one-size-fits-all prototypes of what to strive for. We were spoon fed notions of happiness, worthiness, love. The genuine deals can be darker. They’re less smooth. And they take time to grow.

Thank you for “What we’re unconscious to silently directs us.” - Deborah Eden Tull

Thank you for dog-eared pages in Works of Love, for the exercise its winding sentences give my thoughts. Thank you for the reason I’m reading it. 

Thank you for my sisters’ strength and insight. Thank you for their resilience.

Thank you for when the part of me that worries about being redundant is met by a part that replies some stuff is okay to repeat.

Thank you for when energy, time, and enthusiasm all point toward productivity, and accomplishments are fueled with awareness of what matters. 

Thank you for a couple talking about how their losses opened space for wins.

Thank you for the natural flow of chats with G in 5C. I hope she finds them rewarding, too.

Thank you for the observation that embracing a “lowered bar” lifestyle may actually prove more productive than the expectations-exceeding-capacities model.

Thank you for warming soups with crusty bread.

Thank you for the distinction between urgency and importance.

Thank you for self-help books that aren’t really self-help books. The ones I mean are about love and living well, but are anchored in history. Does the steadying weight of philosophy and religion render them beyond reproach? Not more so than is any modern bestseller. They do have special depth, though, or maybe character, like the faded patterns of an antique rug. Part of what attracts your eye is the beauty; another is the challenge to discern what’s there. It’s as if the stamp of time’s tread lays bare the appeal and wonder of timeless treasures.

Thank you for efforts to grow.

Thank you for (more corny but heartfelt) hopes for all of us. 

I hope we with unspoken dreams venture from the safety of our cages to explore freedom’s expanse. 

I hope we practice courage to share our hearts vulnerably and that doing so transforms our lives. 

I hope we gain awareness of the threads linking our treatment of self with how we treat others, and see how these tie inextricably to our happiness.

I hope we know positive snowball effects where the more we practice courage, honesty, and compassion, the greater is our self esteem, which heaps on opportunity. 

I hope our relationships with ourselves grow into implicit trust in our truth and intuition, and through this trust we gain integrity to live solid like mountains.

I hope we see our power and hold it sacred.

I hope we realize the fragility and gift of existence (and wellness). 

I hope we nourish ourselves with healthy inputs of all sorts—food, media, friends, environments—with insight that our consumption constitutes who we are.

I hope we grow in the capacity to give and accept love.

Thank you for being here <3

 
 

Sisters on the road to Lower Hamlet, Plum Village 2018

Thank you for a new OG self-help book with fun quotes like this: “A society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike” (Bertrand Russel).

Thank you for open spaces.

Thank you for freebies declined.

Thank you for pickled radishes dyed with beets.

Thank you for spices.

Thank you for healthcare.

Thank you for rhythms in songs.

Thank you for rhythms in life.

Thank you for fragrant trees.

Thank you for lasting awareness with determination to remain clear of DM3. Doing so supports healing. 

Thank you for the perspective distance brings.

Thank you for hope and faith in love and humanity.

Thank you for the beauty of the unknown. 

Thank you for all of us enduring hardships, if only because we have solidarity in our suffering and efforts to make it through.

Thank you for questions, even (maybe especially) ones without clear answers.

Thank you for openness to ambiguity when loose ends don’t tie up. We can craft stories to give certainty. And it’s easy to take those stories for truth. The best in me would rather not pretend less complicated narratives are real, though. The best in me embraces the mess. 

Thank you for guidance from Thich Nhat Hanh’s talks. Thank you for his humility and imperfect English. Thank you for his soft “milkshake” voice. Thank you for the grainy videos that preserve his gems. Thank you for the simple profundity of his lessons. Several helped me this week. 

Thank you for wisdom with love (like his), that pulls me through default states of darkness and anger almost like it’s lifting me against gravity. (I guess that default mode is why they call those states “negative habit patterns.”)

Thank you for practices to make a habit of walking the less habitual path, through suffering into wellness. Efforts to diminish unhealthy habit patterns while growing healthy ones must persist. It won’t stick to hear an inspirational talk once in a while or visit a retreat center for vacation or read a text start to finish. Active study is necessary. It has to be ongoing, even repetitive. The principles engrained and practiced will have an impact. 

Some efforts to make this stuff stick are writing little notes (like these) and sharing them.

Thank you for snippets from the talk, “A simple way to heal yourself”: 

  • Compassion is born from understanding of suffering.

  • The energy that can help you look at suffering, listen to suffering, and embrace suffering is called mindfulness.

  • If you know how to suffer, you suffer much less.

  • Compassion should be directed to yourself first. If you don’t know how to be compassionate to yourself, it’s very difficult to be compassionate to another person.

Thank you for snippets from talk, “taking care of anger”:

  • “It is insight that transforms our affllictions.” 

  • Steps in transforming our anger through mindfulness:

    • Recognizing our anger

    • Embracing our anger

    • Looking deeply (into our anger, ourselves, our situation…) 

    • Getting insight

    • Getting transformation, healing, and freedom

Thank you for snippets from talk, “loving speech and deep listening,” and the determination to practice deep listening in future conversations.

  • How to listen with mindfulness of compassion: 

    • “I am listening to him with only one purpose: to help him to suffer less. Therefore, even if he says wrong things, if he is bitter, if he blames, I still continue to listen.”

    • “Breathe in and out mindfully during the whole session of listening, and remember just one thing. Listening to that person, I only have one purpose: Give him a chance to suffer less. Just remember one thing throughout the session. And you can tell yourself that his misunderstanding, his judgement based on prejudices and misunderstanding, in a few days I will have a chance to give him, to offer him some informations so that he can correct his perception. But not now. Now is only to listen.” 

  • Your energy of compassion will keep you safe. “If compassion is there, what the other person is saying, even with a lot of wrong perception, even with bitterness, anger, blames, accusations, you are safe. Because you are protected by compassion. The best protection is the protection with compassion.”

Thank you for holiday sharing. Wishing you warmth, wellness, and peace this season! May your life and love thrive in 2023.

 
 
 

Thank you for colorful friends of varied ages, backgrounds, genders, religions, and values.

Thank you for openness to wisdom regardless of its source.

Thank you for the hungry-angry-lonely-tired (HALT) question from twelve-step that I learned on the Rich Roll Podcast with Whitney Cummings. That guy is such an Al Anon proponent. From what I’ve heard, it helps.

Thank you for migraines dramatically subsiding after addressing a caffeine dependence. My energy feels smoother. It’s also freeing to rediscover the ability to do hard things without a chemical boost.

Thank you for the comparison of how frustrated and crappy it feels before writing in the journal (There’s nothing to say!) with how relieved and happy it seems after. Today’s entry surfaced doubts about the choice to live at the park. Exploring those doubts increased my confidence in the choice. 

Thank you for how we can never know know if our decisions for the future are right. After all, none of us truly sees beyond the present. That’s okay, though. We still can make choices that lead us into the future with a straight spine, clear conscience, and easy smile.

Thank you for the solemness of the term “lavatorial jokes” contrasted with what it denotes.

Thank you for hygge season.

Thank you for leaf flurries.

Thank you for exhilarating bike adventures on unfamiliar routes.

Thank you for BW sending a pic of her with Cam and Echo. Thank you for her open door policy. Being near her made my life happier. It made me want to be nicer. She lives cheerfully and honestly, despite hardships, with grace.

Thank you for a future home with open doors. Thank you for dreams of garden-fresh food. Thank you for role models living their dreams “alone” yet surrounded by the love they’ve invested in all they do.

Thank you for the support of future nextdoor neighbors on either side. Thank you for their doggos.

Thank you for more of Marcus Aurelius’ advice to self: “Every time you lose your temper, make sure you have readily available the thought that anger is not a manly quality and that in fact gentleness and calmness are more manly, qua more human.”

And, “Fortitude, strength, and courage are attributes of a calm and gentle man, not one who’s irascible and easily offended, because the closer a man is to being impassive, the closer he is also to being a man of power” (Meditations 11.18, Waterfield translation).

I wonder if the emperor would have agreed with the use of “impassive.” My hope is that the original term was more like “equanimous.” Man(ly) can be interchanged with woman(ly), too.

Thank you for dim lights in the evening to help feel tired at the right time.

Thank you for the next kitchen adventure: broccoli sprouts! 

Thank you for greens—spinach, kale, arugula, cabbage, chard…. Thank you for fresh, juicy cabbage to ferment. Who knew it could be juicy? I recently found out.

Thank you for vegan junk food munchies.

Thank you for improvements in setting boundaries to protect wellbeing. The trick is to stay both loving and unyielding. That’s not my reality, simply the goal. It is an honor if “easygoing” applies to me. Yet with wellbeing on the line, inflexibility is preferred.

Thank you for memories of NYC as a comfy place. The public transit and walkability helped. A metro card is like the key to the city. And you never have to drive or find parking. 

Thank you doubly for student tickets to the New York City Ballet when Maria Kowroski was a principal dancer. Thank you for Shambards.

Thank you for wordless art tapping deeper than words into our emotions.

Thank you for an awesome roomie at the Gershwin House. Her warmth and wisdom touched me. We gave one another space. (Well, she gave me space.) It’s uplifting to think she’s in the world.

Thank you for sisters.

Thank you for volumes yet to be lived.

Thank you for when we have awareness of present and future opportunities for the good stuff that gives life meaning (connections, healing, joy, growth…).

Thank you for present moments relished and the memories they birth, like immortal souvenirs that feed our hearts the warmth of life.

 
 
 

Thank you for encouragement to one’s self. It helps to have yourself as your cheerleader and support system.

Thank you for relationships we cultivate with ourselves that transform self hatred. Stubborn efforts and forgiveness help.

Thank you for our responses to life’s blows mitigating their impact and in some cases transforming it.

Thank you for the connection between self loathing and arrogance, because it means I can address both together. They’re jointly tied to either-or, individualistic thinking. When the stark individual extremes melt into a collective gray, I realize, one, that I’m no better than people who do wrong. (My arrogance subsides.) And two, that I’m no worse than people who do right. (My self-loathing subsides.) I do good, and I cause hurt. I falter and succeed. That’s human.

Exploring connections shows we are universally tied to circumstances, histories, nature, habits. If I look deeply, I discern my regrets in your seemingly unrelated wrongdoings. And I perceive my triumphs when I view your success. Further, “success” or “failure” is never the whole story. They’re a package deal, too. Often a regret informs an achievement. Or what seems a success instead causes suffering. 

Mistakes and suffering give (shared) lessons on the path to well being. None of us walk that path alone. No one stumbles without obstacles, even if they’re within or invisible. Likewise, no one rises without help. So remorse needn’t devolve to shame and self loathing; victory or virtue needn’t overshoot to pride and arrogance. Practice looking brings equanimity. (It’s just a thought. My head is starting to hurt so maybe these ramblings are a little kooky.)

Thank you for my dad’s support years after he left us.

Thank you for ideas while meditating.

Thank you for Peaches’ surgery and recovery going well, and for the professionals who gave her care.

Thank you for huge, nourishing breakfasts.

Thank you for a sunny day.

Thank you for a fridge filled with whole foods.

Thank you for clear skin.

Thank you for clean water abundantly available.

Thank you for early morning routines.

Thank you for how good it feels to meditate.

Thank you for houseplants adding joy and calm when we rest our gaze on them.

Thank you for large windows to let in bright sunlight.

Thank you for determination to love.

Thank you for rest.

Thank you for, “The energy of stopping is very powerful” (Thich Nhat Hanh). I’d add that awareness (of breath, thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc.) makes stopping not simply ceasing one thing but also taking up another.

Thank you for the smell of coffee.

Thank you for memories of Paris.

Thank you for it’s never too late. The past two years (mostly in CA) have seen me establish more—and more genuine—social ties than ever before. This happened without pushing or purpose. It’s a stark contrast to the days (esp. in grad school) when social anxiety consumed me. Eye contact with male peers sparked embarrassment. I could barely speak in class or at work. Social gatherings terrified me. And I constantly pressured myself to be less shy. 

Again, focusing not on the problem but on self-care practices and nourishing environments (plus having luck) helped. My MO shifted from avoidance to approach. I became more accepting of me, which gave ease around others; the receding need to quell turmoil left space for curiosity toward lives and experiences. Social anxiety therapy did not accomplish that. Nor did pressuring myself to change. Seeking general wellness through a variety of specific practices helped.

Thank you for when we have the peace of mind to walk tall.

Thank you for unfulfilled dreams. Life looks nothing like I thought it should. I’ve received countless enormous gifts that weren’t asked for, but a lot of what I used to want, what society and ego told me were important, I never received. With those disappointments came a nudge toward gratitude for what I did have and a call to accept more responsibility for my happiness—I’m glimpsing a truer meaning of it.

Thank you for the plain talk of Dr. Robynne Chutkan on the Rich Roll Podcast, particularly about the link between medications and the state of our gut microbiome.

Thank you for fermented foods and diverse plant foods, for how their consumption increases our physical and mental wellness.

Thank you for when we appreciate the times we’re not going under. To be afloat in rough waters is a feat.

Thank you for the saying, “This is a happy moment,” that Sister True Dedication shared on the Ten Percent Happier podcast. 

Thank you for happy little moments to pin with that phrase: morning cuddles with Peach, watching her sniff leaves, tucking into a perfect sweet potato, feeling the breeze on my face, running up the arroyo, seeing sunshine reflected off wings, listening to cheerful music, being enveloped in soft sheets…

Thank you if the above saying helps give a name to your happy moments, so you appreciate them better throughout the day. I hope those moments grow.