chin up

Wednesday, February 15, 2012


diagram above blatantly stolen from Ben Silbermann's Alt. Summit keynote presentation

No is a complete sentence

Anne Lamott

I've been having a mostly shitty time lately (in my head), to the casual observer nothing would likely seem amiss, to my own casual observer nothing really is amiss but tell that to the knot in my stomach, tell that to my breathless self. Last night as I was just about to begin round 5 or 6 of self abuse while cruising around the internet at the same time (natch) I came across a bunch of tres inspiring stuff - so I thought this morning I would do one of those links I love posts.

Alt. Summit* keynote address from Ben Silbermann is fantastic - made me cry at the end & I so love Pinterest it's a hugely valuable tool for me to collect things that I love & find inspirational

Alt. Summit channel for those of us that can't make it in person a fantastic roster of great chats

How I found my way to the terror/joy Ben Pinterest love + a great ideas for tackling overwhelm

great stuff to read - tons of great Alt. Summit recaps - hooray !!

Erin Loechner from Design for Mankind - she's always amazing, very kind + she hearts pink.

Les slow hunch - I am such a slow hunch kinda gal. I love this

The happy secret - sent from MLouest & finally listened to yesterday (when I needed it most)

Once I was snuggled tucked into the nest of down & flannel with my daytimer & journal (I like to do a quick written recap of the day & sort of map out where I might be headed tomorrow). Of course les recap still a little stinging with mean & hateful, still feeling tres defeated & angry with myself. On a bit of a whim instead of picking up a novel from the towering bedside pile I picked up the recently printed (& coil bound dontcha know ?) hard copy of Kelly Rae Roberts 245p e-book from her course Flying Lessons: tips + tricks to help your creative business soar. In it I seemed to magically turn to the section on dealing with Growing Pains, Burn out & Overwhelm.

& found another Anne Lamott gem - in Traveling Mercies she writes about a Buddhist belief

the idea that when several things start going wrong all at once it is to protect something
bigger & greater that is trying to be born - and that whatever it is that is trying to come into our world needs for us to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible


so ... a few tres comforting ah ha moments the biggest being lighten up on yourself girlfriend !!

it's chin up buttercup & please remember to breath

That all we can do is the best we can do.
That is it. No heroics necessary. No suffering necessary.
Just show up, tell the truth, and do your best.
That is more, MORE than enough.

Kelly Rae Roberts

* Altitude Summit

8 comments:

  1. So maybe this is labor pains for giving birth to a new part of yourself - something like that...

    I'm sorry it's been hurtin' inside ya lately. Here's to the ouchie tummy and icky voices in the head taking a long vacation and leaving you alone to enjoy your life. Hugs.

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  2. thanks Ms - your cupcakes looked divine I thought. Actually lightening & brightening the image a little & bumping up the contrast in a photo editing program is a secret for punchier images. I think your composition was great + how close you were to that darn cupcake - yum

    life really is just one constant & never ending lesson xo S + Gang

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  3. Thanks for the kind words about my cupcake pics!! I appreciate your insights about how to make the lighting and contrast greater too - I have a very rudimentary editing software that came with my computer, but I bet I could play around with that and try some things.

    Hopefully the life lesson brings relief soon! If we had sunshine here I'd take some pics of that and send them to you - but we've been cloudy the last couple of days. Ah well!

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  4. If you're like me it's keeping my chins up. Too many slices of pie.

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  5. Hope you can feel on top of things again Susan and glad you found some helpful resources.
    I find the Buddhist philosophy interesting in that it stresses the place of loss in our lives and how often ego influences things. Coming to terms with both is not always easy.
    I remember reading somewhere once that just to turn up is difficult for a lot of people, and shouldn't be underestimated in ourselves, so it was reaffirming to see it mentioned here.

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  6. excellent post...mom is still deciding on Darling Design, you know she did Kelly's design...humm, it is a sign ;-)
    Hope to "see" you in another ALT class soon. ~moose

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  7. woof ! that was very cool Denise being in class with you - it is a lovely & very tiny world we live in. Speaking of classes there are so many great ones ... can barely make up my mind. I'd love to take one of Erin's 'cause I think she's amazing.

    Did you listen to Ben's keynote talk? Wow !! xo

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  8. Hi, Its been a while since I came by. Love these links, especially the one to the TED talk. Pinterest is addictive. Sounds like your empire is growing, yay.

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