Prompts for the Real(ish) World
G'day from Noosa Australia
G’day Beautiful Friends!
I have an Aussie trinity of prompts for you today.
Greetings from the most spectacular Noosa, Australia. Steve and I are here visiting his daughter (my fabulous bonus daughter), Erica, and her family. I’m calling these Prompts for the Real(ish) World because I feel like I’m in a fantasy here, and reality is subjective.
✈️It’s been a while since I traveled internationally. This time around the process struck me as even more OUTRAGEOUS than usual: to toss yourself into this plane container (Seattle - Vancouver BC - Brisbane AUS), be jettisoned across the globe and arrive — TA-DA!—not just in one piece but in a different culture, climate, season, geography, and time zone. THINK ABOUT IT. Steve and I left Seattle on a Monday, arrived in Brisbane on a Wednesday, completely skipped Tuesday October 24. How was it?
🧚♀️Prompt: Exercise curiosity. What is something you accept as part of your day-to-day life that you can stop to contemplate for a few extra seconds? See how you experience a “given” idea, technology, or invention in a new way. Can you believe we have these little hand-held devices that send messages and photos, even audio—entire relationship streams—through these little text boxes? Most recently I pointed mine at the sky to see what planets, stars, and constellations were up in the Southern Hemisphere sky. Today I wondered how humans came to decide what would go into dog food, and why it had to be so stinky. Now you go. Flex the curiosity muscle. Ask without judgment, see what comes in. Curiosity is the re-orientation away from fear and worry.
Frankie (dog), Ellie & Erica on a walk to the beach. TOO BEAUTIFUL! Jet lag, warm sun, the giddiness of being with family, waking up to a warm breeze and three beautiful kids AND a dog, two cats (all three ginger pets) had my emotions in a real lather. Tired, excited, tilted, grounded, telling myself it’s not “jet lag” but body adjusting to being tossed across the globe and landing hard & suddenly at the feet of this AMAZING family I married into. It’s so easy for us to be together. A lot of laughing. Walks, adventures, cooking together. Family drama isn’t a necessity, believe it. And still: It’s so easy for me to feel out of whack. Over time it’s getting easier to contain it all.
🌺 Do you ever feel . . . off? Detached, spinny-headed, maybe sleep deprived, your heart beating up a storm, anxious, perplexed—even when you’re in paradise? Me too. Sometimes it feels like the the world is too close, rubbing up against an open cavity at my chest and I want to close everything up, like shuttering a house, diving into bed at night. I used to have panic attacks but thankfully they’re more a thing of the past. Still, I can wander off, into my own world, feeling separate and scared …increasingly I am able to hold it all, the beauty, the weirdness, the tragedies, and the persistence of the ocean slamming into the shore—we were really built to do this, to hold it all. We are capacity machines, we humans. We can expand our capacity. Turning toward beauty helps. Dropping judgment, and remembering our interconnectedness with all things, people—helps, too. Sometimes, you have to ride the weirdness out.
🧚♀️Prompt: If you have that feeling of off-ness, remember you’re not alone. And by “not alone” I don’t just mean I see you (which I do), and that others have that same feeling of off-ness (which they do), but in your feeling of off-ness you are not a separate being standing outside the universe. It might feel like it; but the mind is an unreliable narrator. To re-connect, start with a chair or a tree or an object close by. Befriend it, be one with it. Even if inanimate, like this pink water bottle at my right, it was created from human imagination, and that is you, me, us: human imagination. Also, if you feel off, I’m here holding my arms out for you— come on in, have at it, all the feelings. Nothing to be talked out of. Stop and listen to the sounds around you. Coming into the moment can calm some of the turbulence.
Cultivating openness. Maybe we’ll talk more about this during the next salon (Nov 16), but here’s one way to increase your capacity to hold more feelings and experiences. Being open. Being open to beauty and awe has been scientifically proven to increase resilience. Being open can be cultivated. Why not do some cross-training and be open to new ideas about ourselves and what we like.
Do you, like me, have ideas about how you are and what you like? For instance: I do not like small dogs. Am allergic to cats. When on a beach holiday must get in the ocean every day. And yet, here I am, for three weeks living in a household with one small dog, and two ginger cats. No allergies. Love the small dog. Perfectly OK not going in the ocean every day. Maybe it’s due to the recent salon in which we discussed uncertainty, not knowing and cultivating openness, I have had more capacity to consider a different experience. Maybe I CAN have a cat for real this time, and this little Frankie is the easiest, sweetest dog ever. I’ve taken it for numerous walks. WHO KNEW? (Helps that the 💩 is so small you can barely see it!)
🧚♀️Prompt: Cultivate openness & surprise yourself by yourself. Stop every time you make an opinion or claim a stance. “I don’t like tomatoes.” “I’m an extrovert.” “I’m a morning person.” “Please, no marmalade.” 🙋🏻♀️ This past summer I went to see a Mahler concert after claiming to “hate Mahler” and was blown away by how good it was. Also: Wagner opera (“don’t like Wagner”), and I’m still thinking about it. Now I keep wanting my mind to be changed. The idea I could be more open to more beautiful experiences is really cool, like a superpower. Try it yourself. Let us know what you find there.
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