June 3, 2022
Hello there,
I am sitting with the subtitle for my course Empathy and Self-Care that I teach a couple of times a year: tending the world without losing yourself. It is a kind of mantra I am taking in even deeper these days. I am asking myself what sustains, nourishes, strengthens and softens me so I can meet the world in caring and generative ways. As tempting, as necessary, as it is sometimes to retreat as I wrote a bit about last week, magic is found in tending the world. Here are some things that have helped me meet the world as it is. I would love to hear what some of yours are.
1.
I admit, a bit of irony helps. Humor holds much truth.
(BTW Tom and Lorenzo are one of my favorite social media follows for fashion, pop culture and entertainment commentary.)
2.
Pride! It's Pride month in the US. What isn't helped by some rainbow fabulousness?
As a straight, cis gendered female I know Pride is not about me. I also know that celebration of self expression and self truth inspires me. When others are themselves, when we see the truth in who another is, we are also freed to be our true self.
Most important, being ourselves and allowing others to be themselves saves lives.
I don't usually post art I can't attribute but I love this one and its message is needed, especially now with all the anti-LGBTQA rhetoric and legislation happening. If you know who created this let me know, please.
3.
Good television.
I finished watching My Liberation Notes this week. It is a South Koren slice of life drama and I enjoyed very much. Here is what the Netflix site has to say about "Three siblings, exhausted by the monotony of day-to-day adulthood, seek to find fulfillment and freedom from their unremarkable lives." It has a slow, slow start I think
many would not hang around for, but I found myself hooked. If you like subtle, slow burn story telling you may enjoy this too.
A detail I don't think of as a spoiler. One of the characters figures that if she can find at least 5 minutes of happiness in a day then life is worth sticking around for. So she counts moments. 7 seconds here, a whole minute there, always finding at least 5 minutes of moments. Another character takes on this practice and it becomes his lifeline. It is such a tender reminder that contentment, even joy, is always making its way to us, even
when things are hard and overwhelming.
While my emotional situation is not as dire as these characters, I'm inspired to collect these moments nevertheless. Letting them exist fully while not demanding that they erase the hard stuff like some Band-Aid from of bypassing.
A smile from a stranger, a cool breeze on a hot day, the way the sun dances through the redwoods while I waiting in the car as husband to makes a bank deposit.
4.
Sometimes life needs some trivalous, my mash-up word of trivial and frivolous, and this mash up of Dirty Dancing and The Muppets is exactly that.
5.
A blessing for your week:
(from the I am a Queen oracle card deck by Outi Harma)
May you find the flow you need to meet the world with care and tenderness.
Sandi Davis
(c)2022 Sandi Davis
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