Monday Inspiration: Jeremy Beard

On this Monday morning I felt drawn to look at my "memories on this day" from Facebook. In addition to a couple of silly teaching posts and pics from high school, I saw a video of Jeremy Beard's inspirational speech (above) at the TFA 20th Anniversary Summit. Feel so proud to be an alum of the same organization as him.

"When you choose to be great you think less about the reasons why not and you think more about the plan for how...Choose to be great so our children can truly be free. This is our legacy."
-Jeremy Beard

Fight Song

Rachel Platten's, "Fight Song"

"I might only have one match

but I can make an explosion.

And all of those things I didn't say,

Wrecking balls inside my brain.

I will scream 'em loud tonight.

Can you hear my voice this time?

....

And I don't really care if nobody else believes

'Cuz I still got a lotta fight left in me."

As we approach Inauguration day, I continue to feel grateful for this song and for the repeat feature on my iPhone. It gets even better the 12th time you listen. Trust me. Or don't. 

Obama's Farewell

I remember freshman year of college, seeing what we joked was a "shrine" for Obama in my best friend Stuart's dorm room. Stuart told us Obama would be president one day. As in most things in life, Stuart was right.

When I think about the children who have only had a black president in their lifetime, I think of how different the world must feel to them. I think about being in 2nd grade declaring I wanted to be president, only to be shot down by the boy next to me saying, "Girls can't be president - look - they're all boys," pointing to a sheet of paper with small head shots of each president. I am grateful to Hillary for trying once again, to prove him wrong.

I am grateful to Obama for his 8 years (and really so many more) of service to our country. I'll leave us with some of his words from his farewell address:

"laws alone won’t be enough. Hearts must change. It won’t change overnight. Social attitudes oftentimes take generations to change. But if our democracy is to work the way it should in this increasingly diverse nation, then each one of us need to try to heed the advice of a great character in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it ... For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ’60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment that our founders promised."

How are you?

Quote I saw on pinterest

What a question. I find myself sometimes paralyzed by the amount of things I could say. The truth is, I'm always a lot of things. I'm feeling a bunch of different feelings at any given point. I'm feeling grateful for the rain since our state is in a drought. I'm also, if I'm being honest, feeling borderline depressed at times when I look outside to the gray, dreary, wet world, thinking about how quite soon, I'll need to exit my big comfy couch with warm coffee to join it. I'm also feeling anxious about driving in it, and all the possible dangers that entails. How do I answer that question? Do I quickly calculate a "net feeling" in my brain? Do I create a pie chart of percentages for how much I'm feeling which emotion?

I saw the quote above (finally jumped on the pinterest train rabbit hole) and noticed myself getting defensive - "shouldn't you be honest and answer truthfully when someone asks how you are?" Then the more I thought, the more I recognized that there is never a time I'm feeling absolutely 100% down in the dumps. Of course, I have moments where that can be up to 99% of how I'm feeling, in which case I may still choose to answer "I'm feeling awful," but what I realized is that I always have a choice because I always have a feeling - no matter how small - of gratitude inside me. As long as I am alive, I have waking up to be grateful for each day, and the ability to focus on and express that truth.

Thanks to God and the gift of waking up each morning, I can always choose to answer that question in a way that talks about my joys. What a joy it is to be alive.

New Year, FRESH Start #vegetablegoals

check out pinterest for more re: bullet journals

Happy New Year! Great News: as you may notice (on my fancy-new-bullet-journal on the left) I set a goal this year of 100 blog posts (roughly 2/week) as a way to ensure that no matter the circumstance, I am taking time to express gratitude in my life. I got a little off the gratitude train there after November 8... grateful to be back on the train! Praying that this year is one filled with peace, love, hope, and joy for everyone in our world. I am grateful for each of those things that I've personally felt already in 2017 - for sweet quality time with close friends, exceeding my 7 hugs goal at my amazing church during our aggressive passing of the peace :), and a phone call from an inspiring teacher that brings me boundless hope for the future of the Richmond community.

Am also grateful for setting VEGETABLE goals again this year, and more specifically, to eat 1,800 servings of vegetables over the course of 2017. As you can see below, I'm off to a great start. Now, fixin' to go stick some of that green stuff in my smoothie. KALE YEAH. #missedme? #backinaction #watchout2017

Tilapia finely seasoned with random cajun stuff in my pantry. Side salad with get this: no cheese! #allfresh

Yoga

Last week I tried Yoga for the first time (not counting the one time ten years ago in college.) I have many close friends who enjoy the practice, and now that I am all-in on the mindfulness train, I figured I would enjoy this type of exercise/mindfulness.

What I wasn't expecting was how free I felt. The instructor kept saying things like "stretch your body out as long as it will go," and so I did. I stretched out my 5'8" long body, stretched out my long, lanky arms, and lifted my legs into the air. I felt free because I realized I had the permission I felt I needed to take up space, as much of it as I possibly could. I didn't feel constrained by things like social norms that dictate ladies shouldn't kick their legs up in the air, sexism that dictates men need/deserve more room on the BART train, at the table, really anywhere... I felt like I deserved the space I was taking up. It's not like I was consciously not trying to take up space in the world before, but this experience made me realize I was sometimes afraid to do so.

I am excited to continue taking up space in and out of Yoga mat land. #nastywoman4yoga

O love that will not let me go...

1. "O Love that will not let me go,
   I rest my weary soul in thee;
   I give thee back the life I owe,
   That in thine ocean depths its flow
   May richer, fuller be.
2. O Light that foll’west all my way,
   I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
   My heart restores its borrowed ray,
   That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
   May brighter, fairer be.
3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
   I cannot close my heart to thee;
   I trace the rainbow through the rain,
   And feel the promise is not vain,
   That morn shall tearless be.
4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
   I dare not ask to fly from thee;
   I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
   And from the ground there blossoms red
   Life that shall endless be."
5. -George Matheson

Thinking of this hymn we used to sing in my many summers spent on Lookout Mountain (Mentone, Alabama) at Camp DeSoto. Grateful for the joy that seekest me through pain and pray that morn shall truly tearless be.