Putting Love into Practice

Gratitude would be the obvious post for today, but I’ve already covered this for the month (check it out Gratitude). Today I’d like to explore a little further, specifically family. This is the time of year when family get together you get to see those far away cousins and crazy aunts and uncles. I am so unbelievably lucky to have a close-knit family. Running with my parents got me thinking about family. Dad’s ranting, “Be happy, what other guy in the country is running barefoot with his wife and child . This is a wonderful moment. Bring it in for a hug, you feel it, you feel that energy? It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it a beautiful morning (note its sprinkling and drizzly,

Awareness, Perseverance, and Reward

The potential reward

I apologize now for the potential depth of this post, but I spent over 10 hours in a tree stand this weekend, which leads a lot of time for perpetual thought. The true challenge is to convey it to you without seeming scattered (it gels and flows so eloquently in my head, but I struggle sometimes to get it right on paper). Let’s begin with awareness. I’ll tell you now that I struggled to stay inspired this weekend (rather I was tested). It would all start out so promising, with high spirits, but as the hours eek on and the only movement I saw were those of squirrels, my focus began to slip. I found myself getting frustrated (like I was upset at the deer for not running by my stand). Then I’d start feeling sorry for myself, etc, just all kinds of ridiculous thoughts. Insert the Power of Now, where it talks about thoughts, and separation from one’s thoughts. I was able to see myself thinking these outlandish/pouty thoughts. What provoked this? Why am I thinking this way?

Fear of Life vs. Fear of Death

I just completed reading Into the Wild and naturally it has brought many things to my attention. I can’t help but feel a kindredness and see many similarities between myself and McCandless. A fan of Tolstoy and Thoreau, many may consider him an ideological, dreamer. He was too green or ignorant about survival in the Alaskan bush and had it coming to him, is what many of his critics proclaim (how easy it is to judge from the outside, to see flaws and determine how best to solve or live a seemed problem, when it is not actually happening to us and we’re not in someone Else’s shoes).  I don’t see this at all. I get his perspective (I live in a freaking shed with no electricity for crying out loud). I’ve frequently been testing myself with little adventures. For me its about breaking down

Balancing Act

Motivation Monday with Brittany: I just finished reading Into the Wild (about a young man who gives up his worldly possessions and seeks solace in Nature, but meeting an early end in the Alaska bush), which naturally gets the wheels in my head turning. I see many parallels to this young man, who some may consider an ideological dreamer, and myself. I see his perspective, trying to deny material objects, human rules and to survive on his own-challenging himself and boundaries, discovery truth. I feel like he may have been lacking balance. The book paints a picture (at least how I interpret it) of him escaping intimacy (although I believe at the end he came around to realize the importance of love and service). I’ve been exploring solitude myself (making my own little adventures into the wilderness), and what I’ve determined is balance is needed. I like to take solo adventures to test myself and push the boundaries of this character ‘Brittany’ that I’ve been conditioned to be. The difference I feel is that I’m not trying to escape and sometimes in cases like