Category: Mindfulness

Letting Go, Mindfulness

The long road to letting go

Jen
http://instagram.com/p/Y9s23Ll6rV/
My kids running in the fields behind Kibbutz Hannaton, Lower Galilee, Israel

I have a bad temper. And I hold on to anger.

I don’t know if I was born sullen and stubborn or if I cultivated these attractive personality traits over time.

Regardless, what I’ve fortunately learned in recent years is that “letting go” is the gateway to peace and ease — the path away from sullen and stubborn.

In the few years before I moved to Israel, I studied with teachers experienced in the mind/body connection, many of whom introduced me to the concepts of mindfulness I often write about. Through their teaching, I understood this practice could alleviate everything from aggravation to anxiety to physical pain.

As a writer, I’m really good at listening to other people’s stories and sharing them with others. Which I did a lot with mindfulness, but looking back, I was not so good at practicing it in real life.

Living in Israel, though — mostly because of the language and cultural differences — has been a daily practice in the art of letting go.

Letting go of my ego.

Letting go of my sense of control.

Letting go of my assumptions .. .about myself, my neighbors, the region, the world.

Letting go of stereotypes.

Letting go of the tight hold over my children.

Letting go of certain dreams and expectations.

I’m nowhere near a master of the art of letting go.

Maybe an experienced student. Possibly, good enough to be a T.A.

Still a long way from Zen bliss.

But with this particular type of study, thankfully, the culmination of my efforts is not in a certificate or a degree, right?

The win is in the practice itself.

I win every single time I let go.

Again and again and again.

Which means I also have the space in which to mess up, without worrying about failure. Because, think about it, failure (hanging on to something ugly like jealousy, resentment, or righteous indignation — all favorites of the stubborn and sullen) just sets me up for an immediate opportunity to win once again.

By letting go.

And with that philosophical turn, I need a nap.

Thank you for listening. This T.A. is outta here.

Love, Mindfulness

What’s missing

Jen

Did you ever notice how much we crave what’s missing? Money, love, things, friends?

For good and for bad — since missing also often reminds us of how much we truly have —  we put a lot of unintended energy towards missing.

I also notice how much unintended energy I put into anticipation. How revved up I get. Excited, nervous, anxious. Often, I put much more energy into anticipating than into the activity or interaction itself.

In some ways, I relish that moment “just before.” We learn by experience from a very early age that the moment just before something good is often the climax of the event itself. And certainly more satisfying than when the moment has passed.

It’s not purposeful, this anticipatory anxiety; this desire.

It’s automatic.

winforlife

We get very little training in how to appreciate the moment.

The before is often… heart-stirring.

The after is sometimes… heartbreaking.

Either way, our heart is moved. And this is what our mind remembers.

But the moment itself?

Unless we make a great effort — which we often don’t — the moment itself is tempered, at best, and at worst, passes us by without much of our emotional attention.

We’re too busy doing to feel.

So, in a way, we’re training our heart to crave the before and after. Not the moment itself.

When I think about how much emotional upheaval I often go through in the acts of missing and anticipation, I wonder how my heart can handle it all. And if, in some way, I can channel the efforts of anticipation and missing into love and appreciation of the moment itself.

Is this even possible?

Has anyone succeeded in doing this?

Is it as simple as re-training my heart to stir …or to break… in the moment itself, as opposed to before and after?

To purposefully redirect the spinning whirlwind…

To feel alive while in the act of living?

In right now?

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Parenting

The gift of a complicated question

Jen

Over the course of one weekend, my 6-year-old asked me two thinking cap questions.

“Is magic real?” and

“Are we rich?”

gazing

I love answering complicated questions. In fact, the conversations which follow these questions rank high on my top ten list of favorite parenting moments.

Why?

Well, obviously, I get really buzzed from the power and responsibility tied up in answering these questions.

Me?

I’m grown up enough to answer such questions?

Me?

You think I know the answers to such questions???

Me?

Are you saying my answers are the right answers?

Me?

Honey, I was hoping you had the answers.

Oh, how I am humbled by these moments, though, as much as I am empowered.

In these moments, I understand how much my answers will shape my son’s thinking.

But in these moments, I also understand how little my answers truly will shape his thinking. My answers, in the long run, will only set him thinking more.

In these moments, I am indebted to him for making me feel – even temporarily – as if I am brilliant, all-knowing, and in control. Simultaneously, though, I am in awe of the complete and utter faith a six-year-old has in his mother, and grateful for the gift he has given me — the simplicity with which I may answer.

When else in our lives are we gifted with such simplicity, such confidence, such love and respect?

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Writing

I really, really don’t want a book deal

Jen

I really, really don’t want a book deal.

Just kidding.

Which blogger doesn’t want a book deal?

Put your hands down.

Stop pretending like you blog for the fun of it.

I say that all the time, too.

I don’t mean it.

Except for when I do.

Which is a lot of the time.

But then there’s the day when a mommy blogger I’ve never met gets a book deal and my eyes bug out and steam pours from both of my ears and my heart and belly both get stuck in my throat and deep inside I

SCREAM!!!!

…In my inside voice. The louder of the two.

Where’s my book deal?!?!?

And then my other inside voice answers back,

“What makes you think you’re getting a book deal?”

And the scream, now subdued says, “Well, you know. Someone should just discover me and fall in love with my writing and offer me lots of advance money (or at least plumb royalties) and beg me to write a book. A whole SERIES even.”

“Oh,” the peaceful, reasonable voice answers with subtle condescension. “I see.”

What she’s not saying (in her peaceful, reasonable tone) is:

Stop waiting around for someone to discover you.

Stop wanting what other people have.

Stop being regretful about what you think you should have done, but didn’t. What blog you should have kept up, but didn’t. What career you should have stuck with, but didn’t. What path you should have taken, but didn’t.

She’s only being a little bit judgy, just enough to quiet the screaming.

===

I have a colleague whose dad is a celebrity.

She hardly ever talks about said celebrity, except in the context of his dad-ness.

I’ve never asked her about this. Or what it’s like to be the daughter of someone so famous.

I imagine, though, her modesty has something to do with her relationship to him.

To her, he’s dad. It doesn’t matter how famous he is or becomes, his celebrity will always be secondary to her.

And I think in all the glorifying we do of celebrity — of book deals, of magazine covers, of awards and prizes and titles — we lose sight of celebrity’s secondary-ness, its subservience.

We lose sight of the inevitable real life behind the celebrity. Why?

Because save for the tabloid spreads, we hardly see the real life behind the celebrity.

The anxiety that comes the day after a book deal was signed.

The self doubt.

The need to please, to produce, to win.

To look good. To smell good.

To smile. To have a good hair day.

We hardly ever hear of their breast cancer scares, their hemorrhoids, their financial troubles, their soured friendships. Save for the celebrities who’ve publicly shared bits and pieces of their angst in well-placed magazine features, we hardly hear of their suffering.

And they all, certainly, suffer.

everyone

No matter how many times we read Everyone Poops, we still imagine that celebrities poop with greater ease, with more satisfaction, with softer toilet paper.

And maybe they do.

But, most likely they don’t.

And, as corny as it sounds, no matter how much we wish we were more famous, more successful, more educated, more experienced, we often fail to acknowledge or recognize how famous, successful, educated, and experienced we already are.

This is what I try to tell my screaming inside voice.

You are already famous.

Seriously, I can find at least three people who believe I’m famous (and yes, their last names are the same as mine.)

And I bet I could find someone out there who is not a blood relative that wishes they could have a job like mine, or a husband like mine, or write a blog like I do.

I am already famous.

Despite that: I still scream inside every now and again when somebody gets a book deal.

And I probably will until the day I finally accept that I am already famous enough.

The day I finally accept I am already famous, is the day I will finally achieve the pinnacle of my success.

Peace, love, and ease.

Behind all our secret or public clamoring for celebrity, what we really desire is peace, love and ease.

And that, my screaming inside voice, is better than a book deal.

Climate Changes, Community, Environment, Food, Health, Mindfulness, Politics

Environment is not a dirty word (and being green doesn’t mean being perfect)

Jen

There’s a story I’ve shared quite a few times over the past six years since I became an accidental activist for holistic health and conscious living.

The story goes like this: I used to roll my eyes at environmentalists.

I used to snore that obnoxious snore that one inhales at the back of one’s throat when one thinks that someone else is holier than thou … naive … peace loving … do-gooding…world saving.

I was like, “Give it up, poser.”

And then one day I became the person other people roll their eyes at.

Oops.

It happened sometime in 2010.

After denying for years I was an earth loving, peace seeking hippie, I realized that all the efforts I had made to be healthy; to protect my kids from toxins in their food and surroundings; to connect people to wellness practitioners that allowed them to avoid a life spent on medication  — all those things — also helped the Earth.

And what did I understand soon after that?

If there was no Earth for my children to live on, it wouldn’t matter how organic, how natural, how toxin-free they were.

They’d be homeless.

And just like that I was an environmentalist.

Not the kind of environmentalist that saves otters or spends two years in a treehouse in the Amazon.

Just a simple environmentalist:

One that stops and thinks before she buys something; before she throws something away.

One that reads food labels.

One that brings an extra plastic bag on a picnic for trash — and then feels a little guilty she has a plastic bag in her possession to begin with.

jen pick up trash

One that teaches her kids that killing ants is cruel and eating animals is something I wrestle with.

I find that many people think that being green means being totally and completely careful and sure about every single thing you do, eat, buy. As if going green means going whole hog, vegan, hemp-wearing, off-the-grid hippie.

It doesn’t.

Truth telling time:

My kids own plastic toys.

Sometimes I throw them in the trash.

My community doesn’t recycle glass.

Sometimes I pack the glass bottles up in bags with the intention of taking them over to the next community for recycling.

Weeks go by. I throw the glass bottles in the trash instead.

I eat non-organic food.

Sometimes that non-organic food is called McDonald’s.

I like long, hot showers.

And sometimes I take them — in spite of the fact I live in a country where water is a luxury.

I don’t like dogs.

Sometimes I fantasize about kicking dogs. (I don’t kick them, but not because I like them).

I am human. But at the same time, I am a thinker.

I am someone who thinks green… by default, at first. And now, on purpose.

I think; therefore, I am.

I am someone who acts green.

Not because it’s politically correct or trendy.

And not because I think that my one or two or ten choices will mean that there will be a planet for my children to live on in 20 years.

In fact, some days I find myself banking on Mars.

Some days I think we’re all just f-ing doomed.

I am an environmentalist because once I started thinking, I realized it was impossible for me to be anything but…

an environmentalist.

Living in Community, Mindfulness, Parenting

Community isn’t just a funny show on the TV

Jen

Living in community is hard.

It’s also engrossing, fulfilling, heartwarming, and at times, heart-breaking.

More than anything, living in community is a sure-fire way to be present at any given moment to your self-worth, your self-esteem, and self-sufficiency.

Living on top of each other — which is what you do when you live on a small kibbutz, at least — means you are every day faced with fitting in, belonging, needing, giving, taking, believing, doubting, judging, questioning, accepting, committing, avoiding.

Your heart just sits there in the front seat of a roller coaster ride.

Some days trekking slowly slowly to the top — excitement building. You can hardly breathe. Other days, a swift ride to the very bottom. You can hardly breathe.

But in a different kind of way.

Who chooses this life? This togetherness?

Who forfeits the privacy, the independence, the safe separate-ness of living in a large city or a large suburb with long driveways and electric garage door openers?

There are days when I want to run away to that large city; hide inside a dark suburban garage.

You can’t do that on kibbutz.

You can’t avoid the neighbor who insulted you.

Or the friend who disappointed you.

Or the child who bullied yours.

You can certainly try.

But as you cross paths time and again, each time reminded of the injury, the insult, the suffering, you have a choice to make.

Be with the suffering,

Or heal.

There’s no avoiding. Not for long, anyway.

There’s just choosing to suffer or choosing to heal.

Living in community is hard.

But no harder than life.

Living here, in community, is like living in a petri dish of evolution. Of social innovation. Of personal development.

Of love and compassion.

For yourself and for your neighbors.

And it’s hard some days.

Other days, though, miracles happen .. right before your very eyes.

 

Family, Love, Mindfulness, Parenting

My life in pictures

Jen

When I was a girl, I imagined my life a movie.

In fact, I have a few distinct memories of moments in which I felt very present to the experience of being watched.

This makes me sound crazy. Paranoid. Egotistical.

I know.

But, nonetheless, every once in a while I’d be walking down the street with a friend or engaged in a song and dance with my brother, and suddenly sense an observer.

I’d look around. Nobody was there.

Over time, I resolved this to be an inexplicable sensation I labeled, “My life in pictures.”

Now, as an observant adult, as a mindful lifer, as a humbled human being awed by her children, terrified by her own mortality…I find I am a member of the audience, instead; with one greasy hand inside the popcorn box and the other gripping the side of the aisle seat wondering…

How will it all end?

Meanwhile, I’m also the excited, but cautious cinematographer.

Struck breathless by extraordinarily poignant scenes

moti penina piano

Obsessed with capturing light

lights tangled

and angles

boys in the grass

Wondering all the time if other people can see what I see…

If other people feel the love and the loss inside a half-eaten cupcake

cupcake

Or the extraordinary sadness of a broken plate

plate

I sometimes watch my husband chase the children and know that once there was someone who watched me.

Someone is still watching.

A critic, a fan, or just a curious spectator of my life in pictures.

Letting Go, Mindfulness

The gold buried inside a rejection slip

Jen

I got rejected today.

I opened my email this morning to find a very nicely-worded rejection letter in response to my application to participate in a young Jewish leadership conference.

I know what you’re thinking: You’re not so young anymore.

This is what I thought, too, when I opened the rejection letter.

I mean could there be any other reason why the evaluation committee would ever in a million years not choose me?

I mean, come on.

I’m passionate. Energetic. Creative. A proven innovator. A success story.

Who wouldn’t want me to be a part of their project?

Okay, it’s possible I’m a little past my prime. Maybe I’m not the rising star I used to be.

But…reject me? Who would ever do that?

And yet, someone did. A whole committee. A whole group of people sat around and discussed my worth, my potential for contribution, my adequacy.

And they decided:

WRONG!

Why am I sharing this with you? Who goes around and admits she’s a loser?

Someone who wants to convince her heart of what her head already knows:

There is no deep meaning concealed between the lines of a nicely-worded rejection letter.

A rejection is a pure and simple, “No, thank you.”

A rejection is not, “You suck;” “Never in a million years;” or “As if!” and I think many of us — even those of us with a history of success — often over-interpret, over-internalize, and over-analyze rejections.

We make them mean something.

About us.

About our work.

About our worth.

The truth — the gold — is we reject people and things a hundred times a day and attach no meaning.

The phone rings. We don’t answer it. Rejection. Without meaning.

The telemarketer calls us up to offer a special deal. We say no. Rejection. Without meaning.

The cashier offers us a club card. We shake our heads. Rejection. Without meaning.

Our spouse makes a move … okay, this is where it gets dicey … but you understand, don’t you?

It makes no sense to say that one rejection has meaning when another doesn’t.

Either rejection means something or it doesn’t.

And I suggest it doesn’t. And we’re better off believing this reality than the one that says rejection is proof we’re losers.

Rejection means someone said, “No thank you.”

And it only makes its way into our future when we bring it along for the ride.

 

Family, Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting, Religion

Purim lots

Jen

My husband and I fell in love and got married quicker than you can say “Who moved my cheese?”

Almost as quickly, if not quicker, we got pregnant with our first kid.

We didn’t take the time to have the important parenting conversations like,

“Do you mind if our kids eat candy for breakfast?”

“Is it important that our kids go to college? Or is GED good enough?”

“Is it okay if our son marries his cousin?”

Somehow, we’ve made it this far without divorcing or selling one of our children on the black market.

Eventually, we had a lot of those crucial conversations, and luckily see eye-to-eye on most parenting issues.

Our values line up.

When we disagree, I can usually persuade him.  Sometimes it takes a few years…Like the time he refused to switch from Heinz ketchup to the organic Whole Foods brand.

Three years later the organic brand was in our fridge door.

(Now, in Israel, we’re back to Heinz. It’s a specialty item, which in Hebrew means “practically organic.”)

There was this one time, however, when my husband was right in the first place.

We were talking about our kids as teenagers and how comfortable we would feel if one of them decided to dress “Goth.”

My husband was insistent that we would be flexible about piercings and black lipstick and long leather jackets. He said we needed to foster their sense of creativity and self expression.

I could see his point, though I was hesitant and reluctant.

Truth is: I don’t want my kid to be the kid teachers and other kids are afraid of.

Also, I’ve never been good at not being scared of people who dress scary.

I don’t want to be scared of my own kid.

Our kids are still too young to be expressing themselves with their outerwear just yet, but one day a year, my oldest son wants to show off his dark side.

Purim.

The other kids come to the bus stop in homemade Mordechai costumes, or walking clever references to pop culture.

But my kid?

Year after year, he wants to scare the bejeezus out of you.

scary purim costume

My husband usually goes along with it.

But this year, concerning the above nail-impaled zombie mask, my husband was himself reluctant.

At first, he considering forbidding my son to wear the mask. (It was a gift from Saba and Savta.)

It’s not appropriate, my husband told me. Purim is not Halloween.

He’s right.

Or at least maybe he’s right.

Who am I to know what’s Purim appropriate? I’m still a Jew in progress. Still an immigrant mom. Still figuring out how not to embarrass myself on a daily basis.

But what I do know —  what I’m sure of — is that my husband was right when we first had that conversation 8 or 9 years ago.

We absolutely, positively want our children to feel free to express themselves.

As long as they aren’t hurting themselves, or others, we want them to be comfortable showing the world who they are.

To dance.

To sing.

To frolic.

To feast.

To be free.

This is Purim spirit, I’m sure of it.

This much I know.

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Writing

And Yadda Yadda Yadda … I got nominated for an award

Jen

My first chain letter experience was during Freshman year of college.

It involved underwear.

You remember chain letters pre-internet, right? You received an invitation in the mail (usually handwritten on notebook paper) and were invited to participate in a “totally super-fun project.”

The deets on the one I said Yes to?

Send a pair of sexy underwear to a stranger — a girl whose name was written at the bottom of a list sent to you by a girlfriend. Then you were asked to invite 5 or 10 more girls to join the super-fun, and within six weeks you’d get 30 or so pairs of new sexy underwear in the mail.

Back then, I was actually spending some of my discretionary funds at Victoria’s Secret, so this proposition seemed like a good idea.

Lo and behold, I ended up with 30 or so new pairs of sexy underwear.

Really.

Or course, sexy is a very subjective term.

And lace irritates my thighs.

But, it was, at the very least, really fun to get packages Freshman year of college and it was a hoot to open up the padded manila envelope and be surprised by the contents.

liebsterThe Liebster Award process is a little bit like a chain letter: Someone chooses you. You feel acknowledged…a part of something.

If you choose to accept, you’re required to do something that takes a little time and effort. But you do so with the hopes that your small time and effort will reap rewards for many.

Thanks Miss Corinne, for the letter in the mail. Now I get to prepare the virtual padded manilla envelope of love.

Here are the instructions and the contents.

Instructions:

I answer 11 questions Miss Corinne provided. I add 11 random facts about myself. Then I create 11 questions for my nominees to answer. Then I link to my nominees’ blogs. Who will I nominate? Blogs I think deserve more attention. Bloggers who are writing mindfully. Bloggers who are trying to create community. Bloggers who make me laugh, think, or smile hopefully. Blogs that I think are poised to make an impact on other people’s lives as long as they’re read. Here goes:

Questions I Was Asked To Answer:

Do you think social media and communicating online is helping/hurting human connection?

Overall, I think it’s helping human connection. Personally, it’s my mission to use social media for good — to make people think twice; to make connections that make a difference, both to me and others. But in some smalls ways, as referenced to in a recent study linking Facebook to depression, we’re suffering a little too as a result of social media. We compare our lives to others. We don’t let go of old pain, old baggage. We sometimes learn about tragedies we’d be better off not knowing.

What does “being green” mean to you?

Five years ago, I would never have called myself “green.” In fact, I would have gone as far as saying, “I’m not green. I’m healthy. There’s a difference.” But there is no difference, and that’s what more people need to understand. I understand now that what I do for my or my family’s health will be pointless and useless if I do not also act for the sake of our environment. We can’t have one without the other. So for me, “being green” means understanding that the health of the planet is related to my own health; and vice versa. If health matters so much to me (and it does), I need to do what I can on an individual level to stop hurting the planet (make better choices) and on a community level, to inspire and educate my friends and neighbors to make more conscious lifestyle choices.  Specifically, lately for me that looks like: recycling more, buying less, and in general redefining the word “trash.” Stopping to think before I throw something in a trash can. Walking more, driving less. Living closer to the land, appreciating it, caring for it, and teaching my children to do the same. And not in a Farmer Brown sorta way — not yet. In a “I’m still figuring this out” sorta way.

Do you do any gardening (indoor/outdoor, rural/urban)?

We have a backyard vegetable garden and an herb garden. If I can do it, anyone can. We also live on a kibbutz. I count that as gardening — anyone who lives in constant cow stink gets extra points.

You get to fly anywhere for free – where do you go and why?

Hawaii. I’ve always wanted to go … surf, climb mountains, dip my toe in a volcano.

You get a large sum of money, but have to give it to one charity – who do you give it to?

I’m a rule bender. I’d create my own charity — it’d be dedicated solely to finding a cure for food allergies (and a little bit of lobbying). It’s beyond ridiculous that with all our medical technology that we have not yet found a cure for food allergies.

You get a large sum of money, but have to spend it on yourself – what do you buy?

Luckily I was educated in the 1980s-era school of Richard Pryor films (Brewster’s Millions, The Toy) so I could easily spend lots of money on myself without thinking too hard. I wouldn’t buy a baseball team or a live human toy. But I’d start by hiring a stylist. She’d help me buy a new fashionable wardrobe.  I’d pay lots of extraordinary service providers to service me: health coach, cook, massage therapist, personal yoga instructor, life coach, hypnotherapist, dream coach, writing coach. Then, since it’s a “large sum of money” (which in my mind means GAJILLIONS) I would quit “working” and start “healing.” Solving the problems I feel like I can’t solve right now because money is an object.

Favorite movie and why?

If I have to choose one, it’s The Princess Bride.  It’s storytelling perfection with a moving soundtrack by Mark Knopfler.

What guilty pleasure song/album can be found in your iTunes or movie in your DVD collection?

Yeah, I don’t have ITunes which might explain why my guilty pleasure is Barry Manilow. Enough said.

Favorite artwork and why?

Cheesy answer, but authentic: My 6 year old son’s.

mommy and oliver meditating

And my husband’s:

jen bug

Best advice you ever got?

This is where I wish I had a personal film flashback function – so I could tell you exactly what was said, by whom and when. But I don’t. I’d say I am most grateful to my friend Devora for suggesting I take a weekend self-development course called The Landmark Forum. It put me on the path that I am on now. And I guess if I were to go backward even more, I would thank my son’s first pediatrician Dr. Keith Dverin for “advising me” to be friends with Devora.

What has inspired you lately?

My surroundings as seen through the filters of instagram. I feel as if I can finally show others what I see in my mind’s eye. Mostly the sky. Cloud formations. Unusual trees. Unusual people.

11 Random Facts About Me

1. I grew up addicted to All My Children. I could tell you story lines and characters from the late 1970s. And when I was in college, my mom won for us a visit to the set in New York City. It was awesome. (Tad Martin was dreamy. And we got to see a young Sarah Michelle Gellar, before she was Buffy, rehearse a scene over and over again.)

2. I never really cared for Sarah Michelle Gellar’s acting on AMC, but nonetheless quickly became addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer soon after its debut. My first “blogging” gig (paid!) was for a site called The WB Scoop. My job was to blog about Buffy episodes. The site is long gone but some entries are archived here. I actually had a bit of peanut gallery.

3. I have a brother who is 2 years younger than me and one who is 12 years younger than me.

4. I have very vivid dreams … every night.

5. Sometimes my dreams come true, but usually only the boring ones.

6. I am a science fiction nerd. In addition to All My Children, I grew up on the original Star Trek. I hated “Trouble with Tribbles,” but loved the episodes where they go back in time.

7. I lived in NoHo when I was in my twenties and right before it was super chic.

8. I used to see celebrities all the time walking up and down the street. I once semi-stalked Jared Leto by following him into Dean & DeLuca; I also sat next to Matt Dillon in a bar and — on a dare — touched his butt.

9. I wish I was two inches taller than I am.

10. I was a White House intern.

11. My favorite ice cream flavor is Java Chip.

11 Questions for My Liebster Nominees

1. What does mindful living mean to you?

2. How do you deal with people in your life you think “bring you down?”

3. Do you believe in reincarnation?

4. Do you think world civilization is doomed or on the path to enlightenment?

5. Name one person who changed your life forever (first name okay) and why.

6. Name one person whose life you changed forever (first name okay) and why.

7. If you could have one super power what would it be?

8. What’s your earliest memory of your parents?

9. How is the town where you live now different from where you grew up?

10. How are you making the world a better place?

11. What’s usually the last thing you do before you fall asleep?

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for! The Nominees:

Exploring Mindfulness and Reality Beyond

New Day New Lesson

Counting Ducks

Dr. Susan Rubin

Generation X-pired

Lizreal Update

From America to Australia and back again

Clothilda Jamcracker

The Kasdan Family Blog

The JackB

Triumph Wellness

Nominees … don’t forget. In order to play, you need to choose your own nominees and paste the Leibster ribbon on your blog post. Nominees are supposed to have less than 200 followers — smallish, less well-known blogs. My nominees range from smallish to medium. I have no idea how many followers you really have but I do know I want more people to follow you!

Environment, Love, Mindfulness, Relationships, Spirituality

The Abundance Tree has sprouted

Jen

Seth Godin.

That man has a gift for producing nuggets of wisdom. Little snippets, little treasures of thoughtful brilliance that may equally apply to your personal life as they would to your career.

Today, his wisdom nugget was a metaphor plucked from nature. Here it is in its entirety:

seth godin plant seeds

It’s a lesson on abundance of which I need constant reminding:

The more unreservedly I give, the more abundantly I receive.

Thank you, Seth Godin. Message received. Seed planted. Abundance tree growing.

Soon after reading Seth’s nugget, I wrote … a bit reservedly… a rather vulnerable post. It was one of those that make me hesitate to hit the publish button.

In my hesitation, I heard the online voice of James Altucher who writes all the time that his most well-read blog posts –the ones that most touch a nerve — are the ones he almost didn’t publish.

So, feeling vulnerable, I hit publish anyway.

I published the vulnerable post because somewhere deep down beneath the fear and apprehension was a belief that some good would come from hitting the publish button; some good would come from sharing of myself; someone’s head somewhere would nod along with me; someone’s heart somewhere would swell with compassion or fellowship.

Hitting the publish button was me planting the seed.

A half hour later I saw a comment come in from Miss Corinne at A Green (ish) Life responding to my vulnerable post (positively) and telling me, by the way, she nominated me for a Liebster Award. I’m not sure what I was more excited about — that she liked my vulnerable post or that she nominated me for an award I never heard of before.

Either way, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside.

Abundance sprouting.

The very essence of the Liebster Award, it turns out, is unreserved giving. The trophy? Paying it forward.

Thank you, Seth Godin. Thank you, Miss Corinne. Thank you, James Altucher.

Stay tuned for my Liebster acceptance speech and nominations … and watch my abundance tree grow.

Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Relationships, Spirituality

Life is hard work and other things that make me feel tired, but alive

Jen

I am struck by the pictures my friend Holly is sending back to us from Hong Kong and Vietnam.

See more http://instagram.com/theculturemom
See more http://instagram.com/theculturemom

She’s feeding her wanderlust with banana pancakes, dim sum, and gorgeous panoramas, while feeding our desire for travel photography “porn.”

I love instagram.

Almost in the same moment that the drool drips down my chin,  while mesmerized by the lush green mountain ranges and Buddha statues, I long for the eyes through which I saw Israel in the first months I lived here.

The virgin immigrant eyes.

The virgin immigrant heart that burst with joy each and every day…at the beauty of this land; in curious awe of her people.

Cochav Hayarden, March 2012
Cochav Hayarden, March 2012

When we first made Aliyah,  every drive was emotionally equivalent to a stroll through an art museum; every hike through a national park was a new adventure in a foreign land.

Every day I would find myself saying out loud: “Do I really live here?”

And I meant it in the same way a mother whispers over her newborn baby, “Are you really mine?”

Two years after making Aliyah, I find that my eyes and my heart are still capable of wonder.

But  it’s an experience that does not come as naturally and as automatic as before.

I need, instead, to make those moments happen.

And that takes a lot of work on my part.

I need to see the trash fire in Kfar Manda

smoke in kfar manda

— and turn my anger into compassion, and then activism.

And that’s really hard.

It’s much easier to be angry.  To rant. To shake my head.

I need to remember, in a moment I feel frustrated by my community, when I am outraged by their seeming indifference to the trash that peppers our fields

how grateful I am for my community.

How my community supports me.

How my community allows me the freedom to be a Jew in Progress. To be curious. To be a novice at living in this country.

Acknowledging my community as a gift, however, is really hard work when I am stuck in a moment of discontent.

It’s much easier for me to assume. To judge. To wish myself away from here.

It’s really hard work — and a huge emotional commitment — to be present in your life all the time.

To notice. To stop. To redirect. To be who you want to be, not your raw-emotion-of-the-moment.

It’s exhausting — living your best life.

It’s much easier to feel alive when you are on vacation — separate from the drudgery that often clouds your intentions.

It’s much easier to feel alive when you are first in love; experiencing a newness; your senses overwhelmed by glorious colors and smells.

I recognize this.

And I acknowledge that some days I am too tired to live my best life.

But on the alternate days — the ones in which I work hard for happiness, the ones in which I allow my heart to be open and my mind to be free — I find beauty that surpasses any landscape, any painting, any colorful market scene.

A vacation awaits me.

In my regular boring life.

And yours.