Tittilating Titles

Who says "don't judge a book by it's cover?" We do it all the time. All the freekin time. Seriously. When don't we judge a book by it's cover?

And so, we are busted. And now, what are our options?
1) pretend we didn't judge the book by the cover
2) blame our perception on someone/something else
3) justify our behavior/perception
4) call out for pizza and hope that no one notices
5) none of the above
6) all of the above

And that is just the beginning of that particular Pandora's box, which I may or may not follow up on, depending on whether or not I like the cover...

So when looking through the titles of a blog, a table of contents, a menus, a book of short stories or essays, or whatever other random list of stuff, notice what is the shiny object we gravitate to. A catchy title? How many facebook "likes" or "shares?" The side dishes? A business card? Headshot?

Whatever it is, it had the power to capture your attention enough so that you chose it instead of something else.

Ever notice that the big S self doesn't always try so hard?
 Or does it?
Or what else has the better publicist?

In the meantime, if you judged the book by its cover, and ended up liking the book, who cares how you got there?

Timely Poem

back to my beat poetry days. just felt inspired. and no, the piano has not been drinking. this time...

Keeps marching.
Keeps ticking.
Keeps time
in a bottle
of shampoo
or gin
or something else that has the label rubbed off.

one thing for sure
this too shall pass

in fact
 it
   already
           has

Free Willy

When all is said and done, we are left with our choices. Free will. The will to go with the flow of past choices which is great if they are still working for you, but they can be a veritable whirlpool if they are not. Free will gives us the opportunity to choose something other than the whirlpool. So in the ocean of life, remember that drowning is only one option. There are others. Floating. Surfing. Drinking. Cruising. Swimming. Etc-er-ing...

Will free-will free Willy? And is it really free cuz someone once said there is no such thing as a free lunch and I was assuming that lunch was a metaphor. And I like me some metaphor. And I also like cake.

#freewilly
#anythingforgoodcake

Hanging out at the water cooler

So, your life is getting better. At some point, you don't have much to complain about. Maybe the circumstances haven't changed that much, but for some reason, you just aren't feeling bummed out by them.

That's all great. Except ---

Except now when you are hanging out at the water cooler with your cohorts, and the usual conversations and gossips start flowing, and you can't honestly chime in. What do you do? Revert back to the "old" you and start complaining? Do you create a problem to complain about? This would be a case of "survivors guilt" in a way. Can you embrace your new, improved life?

So keep doing your yoga practice. And during the process, start preparing for graduation day. The day you graduate from the water cooler complaining, and start practicing your new and improved speeches that work with your new and improved life.

Faith exampled and examined

Faith - not so blind. The faith we are looking for is faith in our Selves. Pandit Rajmani Tigunait says we are only as big as our faith. That would translate as, we are only as big as we think we are, as we trust ourselves to be. As we Know we Are.

Faith is knowingness. It is that thing we somehow trust no matter what, not because we have been told to, manipulated or scared into believing, but that thing that even though we may not have been able to prove it with evidence cards like we used in Debate Club, we knew it was true.

What rocks our faith? Doubt. What causes doubt? Hurt, pain, betrayal, disappointment. Once our heart is broken, it's harder to trust. But what were we trusting? The other person to behave like we wanted them to. So we learn to look deeper. We learn to trust our Self. We learn to listen and cultivate our Knowingness. In Knowing, we have Faith.

But is it Faith if we Know?

Yes, because what we Know, it's kinda hard to talk about. That's why we call it faith. So we dont' have to keep explaining ourselves.

inspiration

what can be more inspiring than a breath? Think about it...

fullness

when is enough, enough? We complain about eating too much. We feel stuffed. Guilty. Why did we do it?

I'll bet that the tendency to eat too much isn't only in the food department. I'll bet that most of those who have that experience of frequent overeating, are also those who say yes to whatever project or thing that needs to get done. They feel the need to do more, to take on more, to learn more, to be more, to earn more, to have more. Etc...

so if it's too hard to say no to food, try saying no to some other things first. Get used to the idea of moderation and start discovering when you are really full. Satisfied. Sated. And then practice giving yourself time to digest that which you just did, whether it's eat, finish a project, knock off another item from the to do list, or referee another family dispute.

if we move from one thing to the next without moments of digestion, we may have a hard time remembering what its like to be hungry for the next thing, food or otherwise. And then when we are hungry, that next thing is fun, tasty, welcome, instead of something we dread. Something else to digest and make us feel heavy, bloated, or numb in order to make it through.

so use food to practice life, or use life to practice the food relationship. it doesn't matter. start now.

are you hungry or full?