Tag: calm

Learn to Be Kind

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We are officially done with summer (boo) and are entering the fall months. We are headed to what I like to call the darkest times of the year. I call it this because lots of negative energy is released around this time. Lots of stress, suicide rates climb, and people lose their minds. So, this is just a random Thursday word but, I’d like to remind you as we come into the later portion of the year that no one has an obligation to respond to negativity. There is no written rule that the loudest voice is the most courageous and I’d like everyone to remember that its OK to be cool, calm, and collected. Poised if you will. Balanced.

Being angry is easier than being kind. Anger requires little to no effort at all. Anger robs you not only of peace, but of physical and emotional energy. It is a sign of weakness and low self-esteem. It takes more self-control and self-discipline to be kind when others are being mean. It takes more strength to be still in the face of adversity, and to sit back and be silent when others are in confrontation. Kindness is a sign that someone has done a lot of work to improve their personal self and have come to great self-understanding, humility, and wisdom. Learn and practice being the kind, centered version of yourself. This is the most inspiring and productive person.

Contentment #MayChallengeDay22

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Contentment is defined as the state of being contented; satisfaction; ease of mind.

It’s so easy to be down, to be depressed, and to be so very unappreciative of this moment. So easy to worry about what bill needs to be paid next, what the work schedule is looking like for this week (even though this week has not come yet), what the children are going to wear to school (even though its Friday night) or how many blog followers I do not have (even though there are people praying for your numbers).

I’ve been doing quite a bit of self-reflection and one thing I’m learning is contentment. I am learning to be content with where I am right now. Right this very minute and it is paying off. There’s a calm, tranquil to my days when I don’t have to bunch so many of them up into one. I take risks because right now may be the only opportunity I have. As the saying goes, it doesn’t matter how many resources you have, if you don’t know how to use them they’ll never be enough. Likewise, it doesn’t matter how many doors open, if you’re too afraid to walk through them it doesn’t matter. It’s not because I know it all (because I don’t). It’s not because I have thousands of followers or get millions of views (because I don’t), and it’s most certainly not because I don’t make mistakes (I make plenty). It’s not because I don’t have down moments. It’s because I have this moment. This one right here and there’s no telling if I’ll have another one. In this fast paced world of ours, we tend to worry about tomorrow as if it’s promised. We don’t have the time to appreciate where we are because we’re usually focused on the next place. Even in typical conversation we do not listen to understand, we listen to reply. We hear words and we subconsciously search for the ones that will trigger a response in us. Listening. It is a lost art. We hear a lot, but rarely do we understand what we hear and it is because we are not content with being still. I’ll bet there’s a lot going on around you right now, even if you are sitting alone. I’ll bet there’s a lot that you haven’t noticed, even in a small room. You’ve been in that house for years and rarely have you noticed the bird on your windowsill and seldom do you hear his singing. We have to learn to be content with where we are in our lives. Not in the sense of laziness or the unwillingness to work or to change, but content as in appreciating the moment for what it is without constantly thinking about the next. Today is not Monday and you are not at work so stop thinking about that. It’s a nice day out today, take a walk, or take the children to the park. Homework is tomorrow but tomorrow is not here yet. Focus on today.

The Gentle Rain

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I am from the earth. My skin soft like the soil. I watch as the rain slithers from the sky like perspiration from my brow. It brings with it the taste of tranquility, and the smell of clean. I let the water kiss the palms of my hands and muddy itself into the soil of my skin. Perhaps it will seek to filter my thoughts and purify my soul as it does the air. The winds are soft and polite this warm and yet cool morning; a mixture of bleak sunshine and splashes of gray. I hope to accomplish what needs to be done. Who knows, I may just give birth to flowers this day, a rose or perhaps a lily or two, with the gentle rain.

Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge – Laughter

I am so excited about this week’s writing challenge! Today’s theme is on one of my favorite exercises. But first, I want to say welcome everyone to another Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge as hosted by Ronovan of Ronovan Writes and Colleen of Silver Threading.

fileNow, about laughing. I have chosen multiple quotes for this week. Here are some of the best laughing quotes I found:

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142ce0263f0876e1ec67aa4d4701aa8eAnd now, for the serious quotes (Just Kidding, there are no serious quotes)

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Find-It-Funny

be55695067e0820840b9dae4880bc74cOK, seriously, here’s some serious ones:

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That’s all the laughs I have for you today. Until next week, yall be great.

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A Time to Read

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In Shreveport, it started off with a collection of rain drops. They took the opportunity to brave the cooling breath of the skies for a chance to taste the ground. Some of them managed to lick rooftops, light poles, and the hoods of cars; relaxing liquid bodies into the cracks of the earth. But others, others were not so lucky. For the clouds let loose its storage place of wind and paralyzed their bodies midair. They had not the privilege of melting before their frozen futures hit the ground, many of them solidifying into ice cycles and poor trees. You have been suckered into shedding your skin again in the beloved south. Not moments after you begin to bud, the once soft petal of flower must choose not to photosynthesize, but to hibernate more inside that place where flowers go when they do not yet exist.

But what of all of this?

While I do not enjoy the cold (at all) it is a great time to read. And after the glaring sun the crisp bite to the air is refreshing. It is the time to find a good book. To lock yourselves into your dwellings. To warm a pot of tea, hot chocolate or coffee. To curl your legs into yourself and bury both your body and mind into the warm and compassionate world of words.

Silence

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An answer kept sacred inside the breast of nothingness. Thinking for the moment to have sent up hope into an empty sky. What becomes of silence? It ignores our hunger for answers and tugs away at anxious spirits. Uncontrollably the mind races to the next step, pondering what may become of lines uninterrupted by commas and periods. Of thoughts quickly running on to the “why’s” and “how comes”. Never once does it seek to ponder why silence makes such a covenant with our minds, commanding only a light breeze from the wind when not a sound is heard as it eases past our skins. Not once does the busy mind, always racing and so on edge care to ponder what is to be learned in the quite. Silence laughs at the foolishness of our impatience, grabbing time by the hands and together they leave us sick with questions. What is the next move to be made in the stillness? What revelation taps against the calm meditations of the heart? What revolution for our cries? What reproof must we seek to understand in the devastating muteness of the air?