The Art of Nondoing

Being and nonbeing produce each other.

The difficult is born in the easy.

Long is defined by short, the high the low.

Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality

and paradoxical unity.

The sage can act without effort

and teach without words

Nurturing things without possessing them,

he works, but not for rewards;

he competes, but not for results.

When the work is done, it is forgotten.

That is why it lasts forever. ~Verse #2 of the Tao

I have been rereading the Tao again. This whole nondoing bit really seems to resonate with me this time. I find myself lately in the realm of effortlessly doing, without really trying.

Notably at work I find this. I spend my mornings baking at a local pie company. I watch my fellow bakers: stressed about the volume of food (thinking of the whole pie, rather than a slice @ a time- this analogy is perfect for this), or rush through the work. They look like they’re working fast. But then they drop things. They forget ingredients or they miss a step. They get frustrated and yell, growl, cuss, or throw things. On the other side there is me. Laid  back. Calm. Enjoying the process. I love to cook, I love to bake. I just breathe and take it one step at a time. Turnovers flow into cookies flow into muffins. Before I know it’s 9 am and I’m done with my work. Effortlessly and easily I’ve completed the work three hours ahead of time. This art of

Create Your Life

Create: my thought of the moment. With the holidays and last month’s work challenge to post a recipe a day, I realized the importance of being creative. When we moved to Colorado I discovered my passion for it. For making anything with my hands. Of having a vision come to life before my eyes. Whether it was painting and transforming a building, or putting together a brochure or drawing a picture or sewing a scarf or cooking, I like making things with my own two hands. During the holidays spending time in the kitchen and sewing scarves I realized the power to create comes in believing. Believing in the vision. Believing in your skills. Believing you are the best sewer. The best baker. To put forth my best work I had to believe I could do it.

Now it is the new year. A time signifying new chapters, new beginnings. In previous years I would have clichly bucked resolution out of an unwillingness to be conventional. I lost the meaning. This new year is a mark. A sign to reflect back. How was this last year? What did I like?

Steady Pace

This morning as we take off I am teeming with energy. Ready to burst. Ready for my life to manifest and unravel beautifully as I know it will. Ready to serve. Ready to unpack, find a studio, and work. Ready to hike. Ready to meet new people. Ready, ready, ready!

I have to remember: Breathe Brittany and relax. It’s okay to feel electric, but you have to balance and channel this energy. This is not a race, life is not a race. It doesn’t have to come to you all right now, this very instance. It  comes in steps.

The Eeyore Effect

I’ve been around Eeyores all my life, hell I’ve even partied with them and tried out their lifestyle, but one of the things I strive for in my current mindset is to not let them influence me. I don’t have to judge or dislike them, they are a product of their own thoughts and decisions, just like I am my own. I don’t love them any less. I actually owe them a thank-you because they are the ones who give me the best opportunity to challenge. Because they challenge me. They challenge my mindset and if I don’t reconnect with myself and remain at peace, they will affect me. I am responsible only for how I react.

Where is this Eeyore tirade coming from? Ah the wonderful Te of Piglet. After reading the Tao  of Pooh earlier this year, I knew I had to read the companion piece. What is the Eeyore effect or Eeyore behavior?

Saying Good-Bye?

Talk about signs, today I just check my Pinterest to find this staring me in the face. Not only is it perfectly fitting for my life right now, but it is also Winnie the Pooh whom I am in rapture with (Life is Fun remember?). This post may be similar to last, but it’s what in my head as I try to digest what is going on. Last Monday (and the last week) was a challenge (don’t worry I have another sign that came to me on Monday, coming later too).  We have been shown an out pouring of support and people wanting to help us. Offering us services and buildings, they don’t want us to leave. I told my mom it’s different for her than me. She is staying in Terre Haute for another year, but I am leaving in August and it seems like I am preparing to say good-bye. When Dr Tank says he doesn’t want us to leave, dangling buildings and a bakery in my face it makes me almost cave. That would be the easy thing (staying in Terre Haute). Our we doing the right thing? When I take time away, for a hike or something to reconnect with myself and dilute myself of the influence of others, I know I have to leave. It’s like the picture I have coming up: the hardest thing in life is knowing which bridges to burn and which to cross. Terre Haute is a bridge to burn, as I turn west to cross the bridge into Colorado. That is where my path lays and when I listen to the little voice in my head and my instincts, there is no question that this is right. Terre Haute is a safety net. Like I told Nardine, so often we get stuck in a routine of what is comfortable, what is easy. In my high school, that was the norm. For people to graduate, stay in West Terre Haute, get married, have a family and work a 9-5. People don’t leave. My whole life I have been fighting this, never fitting in. Nardine: Have you always went the opposite way of the crowd? Yes, I’ve always stubbornly turned my head away from trends and from what everyone else was doing. If it was popular, I was running the opposite

Shed Confessional

After living in my shed after a year I have finally finished adding my Brittany touches and making it my own. With all my spiritual training, I am aware that home can be created wherever you, but I can’t help feeling for the first time in a while that this home. Growing up our house wasn’t extravagant or large (it was a manufactured home), but it always had the homey quality. Not some over the top home with rooms not for sitting or movie theaters, it was us, it read Paulin all over. When I moved out at 21 to live in a one-bedroom apartment with two of my greatest friends, it felt like I was visiting. I slept on a couch in the front room and only paid the electric bill. It was immensely fun, but it never felt like mine as Tab’s dad let us live there. Two summers ago, Doug flipped a three-bedroom house in a stunner, with new cabinets and appliances. It was nice. Even though this time I was paying equally for rent, it still never felt like mine. All the niceness radiated Tab, and that was okay, but it again I felt like a hotel guest. Tab did her best to make me feel at home, but I withdrew further and further. Cue in Change Your Thoughts Change Your Life. It may be cliche, but this

Life is Fun

I have to admit that I was apprehensive about reading the Tao of Pooh, thus comes the folly of anticipation. I thought it was genius, clever, witty, clear, simple and whatever divine adjectives  you want to insert.

Life is Fun

As soon as I got to this, I thought “I never have to read another inspirational book again, this is it.” Life is what you make it. If you’re stressed and miserable, it is because you made it that way. I have this wonderful saying above the computer at work that says, ‘there’s no such thing as stress; there only people thinking stressful thoughts.’ What in life is fun then? The process. Not the goals or rewards but the moments in between. the moment right before eating the honey is better than actually consuming it. We’ve got to enjoy the in-between moments. The silent pauses between conversations, add up to being. Next, thrive in the nothing. This I’ve launched myself in to. No plans or thoughts for tomorrow just right now. It’s amazing not only how pleasurable it is to do nothing rather than doing what we’re ‘supposed’ to or behaving how we ‘should, but it’s amazing how much gets done! Your life is right here, right now, heaven is here right now. It’s not some dream or fantasy about some

Risk Factor

Failure, what if failure did not exist? This has been on mind ever since I read a blog by Dr. Dyer and after typing for my father where the word kept reappearing (I love my father dearly, but we differ sometimes on viewpoints, which is ok because it’s not about being right or wrong). I find that failure is another one of those fears and memes that we have, that tightly keep us pinned and struggling, so that we are never able to truly live. It’s not our faults, we are conditioned from childhood, always aiming for that ordinary rather than extraordinary. The dream; everyone knows the dream. To go to school, get a stable job, make money, marry, get that house with the white-picket fence, have children and raise them ‘better’ than we were (but still passing our memes down to them regardless of

Moment to Moment Living

Motivation Monday with Brittany: Alright so I just got back from an extended weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; how do you go about compositing such an experience into a singular post that is not all over the place? It does seem like a daunting task but I am up for the challenge. I don’t need to give a play-by-play of what I did or what happened, but lets highlight the lessons learned. Let’s begin with why? Why go to Vancouver? Why only for a couple of days? These were commonly asked questions and the truth is that I have no answers. I find that we are always seeking definitive answers in life (girls want to know is he my boyfriend or is he not, people want an exact reason why I don’t like to drink any longer). Have you ever gotten an impulse to do something. To take a certain class, to take a class, to go to a concert, to dance, to take off somewhere, to speak out? We often think and talk about doing things in life, but soon talk ourselves out of it. That idea is ludicrous, we are too ‘busy’, later on in life we’ll do them. I’ll travel when I’m retired, or I’ll have a family once my career takes off. We’ve become a nation of human doers and not of human beings. That’s what happened to me, I had it stuck in my

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?