Monday, February 26, 2018

Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Take Care of You

Life gets so busy. We feel we have to move faster. We feel we have to do more in the time we have. We feel we have to move in multiple directions at once. We’re called to take care of others—our families, our work. Everyone and everything are tugging at our time, energy and attention.

What results is multitasking, which is really just another way of saying that you’re doing too much and not giving your full attention to any of it.

Stop! It’s time to stop that unhealthy cycle. It’s time to take care of you.

Today, trust in yourself to adopt the practices that will make you feel whole, calm and filled with good energy.

How do you do that? Make yourself a priority. Make time to relax. Make time to exercise. Make time to eat well. Make time to do just one thing at a time. Make time to simply be. Make time to refill your energy well.


Take care of you. Make time.


Monday, February 19, 2018

Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Remain Open and Anticipate

The day is new, the air is fresh and there are opportunities just waiting for you!

We often find our hearts in unexpected places. There are signs all around you. Look for them. Listen for them. Remain open to the possibilities.

Be positive! Anticipate good things and they will come—perhaps not as you planned—but even better!


Monday, February 12, 2018

Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Reflect All that is Good

Look in the mirror this morning—not just to brush your teeth or comb your hair. Really look at your reflection. What do you see? Do you see the face of kindness? Of love? Of gratitude? Of joy? Smile, for you are all of those good things!

Starting today, make it your intention to be a reflection to the world of all that is good. Reflect the light.

This day is a gift! Use it today to be kind, loving, grateful, joyful! Smile!


Monday, February 5, 2018

Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Fill the World with Your Love

You hold tremendous power, more power than you realize. 

You have the capacity to fill the world with your love, kindness, and compassion. As that good energy goes out into the universe, it gets passed on and on and on.

You can bring light, even to the darkest of places.

Let your thoughts, words and actions be expressions of love today and see the difference it makes.


Sunday, February 4, 2018

Along Party Lines

There is a lot of talk these days about our political climate, the rancor, the division, and the voting along party lines without crossing the aisle for collaboration and compromise. 

While I find it all distressing, my thoughts about party lines took a turn recently when I recalled the term having a totally different meaning and growing up with our telephone at home being on a party line. 

For those who are too young to recall such a thing, let alone a phone that isn't exclusively yours and in your hand at all times, a party line was the technology of long ago -- and as recently as 50 years ago when I was growing up. A party line involved having multiple telephone users on one line. Rather than being able to dial a number whenever you wished, you might pick up the receiver, only to hear someone else's conversation going on. Party lines often swept through neighborhoods. You would have to wait patiently (or not so patiently) for the parties to get off of the phone so that the line would be available to you. That would mean lifting and putting back down the receiver periodically. The idea wasn't to eavesdrop on someone else's call. That type of etiquette breach would never do. It was to find out if the line was finally free. I recall the joy my mom expressed when technology had advanced to the point where we didn't have to share a party line with our rural neighbors. 

It was about that same time when we switched from having a boxy type of phone with a rotary dial to a slim trim-line phone, still with a rotary dial. (Push buttons were the next advancement.) Instead of the dial being on the front of the phone and the handset resting on top of the boxy device, the dial was tucked underneath the handset, making the phone look like a more modern and decorative contraption. Phones were no longer basic black. We had one that was olive green and another that was harvest gold -- very cool colors of the 1960s and 70s. 

There was more than one way to use a rotary dial phone. As you stuck your finger in the hole corresponding with the number you wished to dial, you could leave your finger in the hole as you pushed it around in a circle to its dial position and then back, or you could push it around in a circle to its dial position and then remove your finger so that it circled back to its original position on its own. The boxier telephones' rotary mechanism had an interesting sound to them as the dial whirred back into place on its own.

Using a rotary dial made placing a call a little longer endeavor, but phone numbers weren't as complex as they are today. In the days before area codes, we simply dialed five digits when I was growing up. Even though our three-digit prefix was EL6 (for Elmwood 6), or later 356, we simply dialed 6 and then the last four digits of the local number. For the longest time, our home phone number was simply 6-8231.

Using the phone surely wasn't like today where people are on their phones while they're walking, driving, shopping, dining, taking care of their children, standing in line at the store, or while supposedly conversing with others in the same room. Using the telephone was rather an event back in the day when households had only one phone. Even without a party line, all of the family members would have to share the use of that one phone and that meant that teenagers couldn't hog the device. 

While it's ultra-convenient to have this whiz-bang, modern technology in the palm of our hands, there was something lovely about having to share a party line or at least a telephone and to put it into its perspective in our lives. We can never go backward, but it would behoove us now and again to take a break from our phones and other technological devices -- even if only for a few hours, and give ourselves time to truly exist, to be present to each moment, and to give our full attention to where we are, who we're with, and what we're doing. Try it, and see how it feels.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Affirming Words: Embrace Who You Are

Consider adopting these Affirming Words for this month. Say them often to yourself -- whenever you see yourself in a mirror, when you get out of bed to start the day, whenever you need a little pick-me-up:


My goal is to find my authentic self. 

I embrace who I am and I do so with enthusiasm and love. 

I live a life that is congruent with my values and my self-worth.