Day 2767: Paying attention

Here and now, I’m paying attention to these quotes about paying attention:

“The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.” — Socrates

“Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.” — Antisthenes

“If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.” — Miles Davis

“If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.” — Tom Peters

“The difference between hearing and listening is paying attention.” — Ruth Messinger

“If you pay attention to when you are hungry,  what your body wants, what you’re eating, when you’ve had enough, you end the obsession because obsession and awareness cannot coexist.” — Geneen Roth

“When you really pay attention, everything is your teacher.” — Ezra Bayda

“All you have to do is pay attention: lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step.”  —Paulo Coelho

“The universe is full of noise.  True wisdom is in knowing what to pay attention to.” — Debasish Mridha

“Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still.  A portal is opening up.” — Eckhart Tolle

“Pay attention to the little things.  They’re more important than you think.”  — Matt Gutierrez

“Don’t beg for attention; pay attention to your dreams and others will pay attention to you.” — Israelmore Ayivor

“People will reveal who they are if you just pay attention.”  — Germany Kent

“Pay attention to the gentle ones, the ones who can hold your gaze with no discomfort, the ones who smile to themselves while sitting alone in a coffee shop, the ones who walk as if floating. Take them in and marvel at them.  Simply marvel. It takes an extraordinary person to carry themselves as if they do not live in hell.” —  D. Bunyavong

“Pay attention to what you don’t see.” — Tia DeShay

“Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.” — Anne Lamott

“The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.”  — Keanu Reeves

“You’ll have bad times.  But that’ll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” — Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting

“Difficulties come when you don’t pay attention to life’s whisper. Life always whispers to you first, but if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later you’ll get a scream.” — Oprah Winfrey

“Paying attention is the most basic and profound expression of love.” —Tara Brach

“The greatest act of love is to pay attention.” — Diane Sawyer

“Every single person has a story that will break your heart.  And if you’re paying attention, many people have a story that will bring you to your knees.  Nobody rides for free.”  — Brené Brown

“I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often, ‘For the same reason I laugh so often — because I’m paying attention.’ ” — Glennon Doyle

“But when we observe, we are forced to pay attention.  We have to move from passive absorption to active awareness. We have to engage.” —  Maria Konnikova

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” — Mary Oliver

Now it’s time to be paying attention to my latest photos.

If you’re paying attention, you might notice a typo in that job description. What else are you paying attention to?

Here‘s “Pay Attention” from Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

As always, I’m paying attention to gratitude, so thanks to all who help me pay attention to this daily blog, including YOU.

 

Day 2504: Please pardon our appearance

In the past, when I have had red eye (which I am prone to developing because I’m on anti-coagulant medication for the rest of my life), I have asked people to please pardon my appearance.

I assumed that

• people were bothered by my appearance and
• I needed pardoning.

No more!  From now on, whenever I get red eye, I shall ask for no pardons.  Why should I?  After all,

• I am appearing as best as I can,
• I love the color red, and
• nobody’s appearance needs pardoning.

I am also not going to ask you to please pardon the appearance of my latest photos.

 

 

I’m also not going to ask you to pardon the appearance of last night’s special at the Birch Street Bistro in Roslindale, Massachusetts, which was delicious.

Personally, I find it very freeing to stop asking for pardons about appearances.  Does anybody want to join me in that?

Here‘s “Guide for the Perplexed” from PARDON OUR APPEARANCE by The XVIII  Century Greats.

 

I like the appearance of that dog and I look forward to your appearance in the comments section, below.

Please accept the appearance of my gratitude, here and now.

 

 

Day 1037: Candied

Dear sweet readers,

Can you guess why today’s post may be Candied?

Many of us, this time of year, buy too much candy for Halloween, and get candied ourselves.

Candied, indeed.

Yesterday, many sweet people in therapy talked about eating candy (among other things) and how that made them feel.

All that sugar activated my sweet tooth, so  I tried getting candied …

… and got cookied, instead.

As I suggested to others throughout the day …

… mindful eating includes recognizing slips and self-forgiveness. Our self-worth is NOT dependent on what we eat or how we look.

By mindfully letting go of the extra sugar I’ve been eating lately, I was able to notice and appreciate other sweet things around me.

Now it’s time to share some sweet music in this candied post.

Candidly, I chose today’s title partly because of this:

The Candide Overture by Leonard Bernstein is here on YouTube, with over one million sweet views.

What are your candied thoughts and feelings, now?

Sweet gratitude to all who helped me create this candied post and special thanks to you — of course! — for bringing your sweet self here, today.

Day 424: Things I learned from groups this week

I am very lucky. I get to do work I love: group therapy.

Why do I love that work so?  Well, every week, I witness people connecting and healing, in their own unique way, but also as part of something bigger.

It’s so amazing, each time. I’m never sure if I can ever really capture the experience in words.¹ But I can’t imagine anything better.

Okay!  That’s the end of the introduction to this post.  What’s the “meat” of this post today?

I’d like to list just a few of the many things I learned² this week, facilitating³ groups:

•  Mindful eating — that is,  consciously focusing on taste, texture, and the experience of eating, while letting go of distracting thoughts over and over again — can be helpful and …. almost a revelation for people.

• Feelings of shame are like …. weeds. That is, they keep springing up , they spread easily, and they are really difficult to get rid of. But we have to keep doing our best with that, or they might choke out other, more beautiful things.

• When people expose their feelings and thoughts in the presence of others, they often realize they are not alone.

I think I’ll stop there, especially since the word “few” (which I used in the introduction to that list) means ….. three, to me.

Hmmmmm. I wonder why I’m using so many ellipses (….) in this post?

Maybe it’s because I’m trying to convey something I would do if I was speaking these thoughts out loud, right now. That is, each time I’ve used … dot dot dot … in this post, I would pause for emphasis and — perhaps — allow my listeners to fill in their own assumptions.

It’s fun to speak directly to people.  Another reason I love my work!

Thanks to Dr. Susan Albers (for the first Mindful Eating image), to my bf Michael (for the second one), to Bloom into Landscaping (where I found the weed image), to all who have the courage to be vulnerable and to heal in the presence of others, and to you — of course! — for participating today.

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1  The challenge of capturing this experience in words came up for me several times this week, as I had two deadlines for doing that very thing: (1) writing an article about the way I do group therapy and (2) writing a proposal to make a presentation about that, also.

2 Actually, I re-learned many of these things, but that’s how human beings learn, people!

3  “Group facilitator” is the term most people use, these days, instead of “group leader.” I like that term. I think it does a good-enough job of capturing that experience.