The Future of It Is What It Is

The best way to predict your future is to create it.

Abraham Lincoln

My posting to this blog came to a screeching halt in July of last year. That was when my email subscribers no longer received an email announcing a new post. I knew this was coming but failed to determine a path forward. I decided to take time to consider this. And as time has a way from getting away from us, I am with no resolve. So, stepping back from not only posting but writing as well, I have determined the following:

• I miss writing and would like to continue one way or another.
• I miss instant blog publishing and could continue with a different hosting service meeting my needs.
• I would like to compile a book of curated posts from 12 plus years of blogging.
• I would like to compile a book of the travel blog posts from my 4 traveling years living houseless.

Without further ado, I am ending It Is What It Is as it exists now. It’s been a pleasure to share with you my take on life, and I look forward to inspiring you in one form or another in the future. Thank you for following me and sharing your insights as well.

I hope you will continue to learn from the circumstances of your life as I do each day. While no one knows what the future holds, I intend to create the space for mine.

Until next time...

With love,

Michelle

Quote illustration 227881941 © Rashmi Singh | Dreamstime.com

Cultivate to Radiate

With growth I radiate like the brilliant beams of the sun.

In garden lingo cultivating is what we are doing when caring for growth in our garden. I previously posted about cultivating joy, but here I am focusing the need to cultivate and give rise to growth in many directions in life.

In the first few months of the year, I was exploring tai chi martial arts as an additional part of my workout routines. The only thing is, to add something I have to stop doing something else. I’m already in the habit of changing my stretching, yoga, Pilates, and weightlifting on a regular basis within those practices, but adding something else has proven to be too much. So, while I initially gave my tai chi practice attention, I am no longer exploring it. Instead, I have found I have been able to adopt the slower focused pace of tai chi into my other practices. One could say I’ve refined some of my old routines and that has allowed me to branch out and radiate in new directions in my life garden.

Perhaps in the future I will revisit tai chi, but for now I’m cultivating the seeds. This cultivation has helped me grow in ways I hadn’t previously considered.

Take care,

Michelle

Photo © Mythja | Dreamstime.com

Be Kind

“Ben’s Bells teaches individuals and communities about the positive impacts of intentional kindness and inspires people to practice kindness as a way of life.”

Ben’s Bells Project

I love things that surprise me, delight me, fill me with joy, and make me smile. Whenever I see a Be Kind mural, such as the one above, it makes me smile. It reminds me we could all use a little more kindness these days. Such a simple thing, be kind, but for some reason it seems to be so difficult to understand these days.

After seeing several murals around Arizona, I Googled Be Kind murals to see if I could find out about them. What started in a backyard art studio after the loss of the founder’s son, Ben, started a powerful ripple effect. Ben's Bells is now a growing non-profit organization and are currently celebrating their 20th year. I’d like to invite you to check them out and donate or purchase their hand made bells, stickers, coins, etc. to support this project and spread the love at www.bensbells.org. You may also find out how you can sponsor a mural and create a kindness ripple effect in your community, school, church, or an organization you know of.

Being kind is being considerate, helpful, thoughtful, compassionate, sympathetic, friendly, pleasant, nice ... you get the idea. And I know we could all use a lot more of what kindness can do. Join me and spread the love of being kind.

Take care,

Michelle

Be Kind photo courtesy of Ben's Bells Project

Inviting Silence

When I embarked on meditating about 18 years ago, I began to invite silence into my life. Ever since those remarkable building blocks of meditation, I’ve continued building silence into each day. I always used to have music playing in my car, home, yard, in my ear while doing other things, and even in my office at work. I was using music to drown out anything and everything around me to create a sense of quiet and peace. While there’s nothing wrong with listening to music, I do feel not inviting silence into any space of my life is not a good thing. I may not hear life whisper to me. I may not hear what the universe is telling me.  

Like many of you, my mind and my body tend to work overtime. It is something I am aware of and consciously work at when I begin to drift in that direction. Although, the more space I make for silence, the more silence I keep building into my life. Now days you won’t find me constantly listening to music. By inviting silence, I have found solitude. In that solitude I am aware, I am present, I am centered, I am focused, I am calm, I am moved, and I am strengthened. I have a deeper sense of my needs. I feel more aligned with who I am and the universe at hand.

I believe we are all craving solitude, but we don’t really know what it is or what solitude can do for us. Invite silence into your life today. Hear for the first time what it is you need and find the solitude you didn’t know you are craving.

Take care,

Michelle

Photo © Jenn Miranda | Dreamstime.com

Cultivating Joy

I began this year by choosing the word theme of grow. With that in mind, I’m picturing my life as a garden. I cultivate joy by providing proper nourishment, light, and hefty amounts of love. One of the big challenges in any garden are weeds. The key here is not allowing them to hang around for very long in the first place. If my garden is healthy and well cared for, I have fewer problems with weeds taking hold. So I yank out anything that may cause problems for me and my garden along the way. After all, it’s up to me to weed out what I know is not good. It is up to me to cultivate joy.

It’s been difficult at best these last few years keeping all the weeds from taking over my garden and cultivating the so needed joy back into it. The reality of all that is happening in the world these days seems to feed on itself like tenacious deep-rooted weeds of doubt and fear - not what I want growing and thriving in my garden.

I’ve pulled back on many things I thought I might do and have taken on a much slower approach to my life. This pulling back has allowed me to consider what is going on and how various weeds affect my garden. I’ve focused on doing less and am now seeing more possibilities. I am taking care of my garden. I am focusing on the possibilities for cultivating joy as the seasons roll on. Isn’t that what gardeners do? One planting season isn’t over and we’re planning and planting with the focus on a better future.

I can’t wait to see how much joy I can cultivate into the days, weeks, and months ahead. If you haven’t thought of your life as a garden, maybe now is the time to start planting seeds of joy and see what comes up. So what if weeds start popping up. They’re going to do that anyway, so let’s give ‘em a yank before they become deeply rooted. Let’s cultivate healthy and well cared for gardens. Let’s cultivate joy.

Take care,

Michelle

Being a gardener, I can’t help but share deep gardening thoughts with you from time to time. In the past, I’ve including gardening in many posts. If you enjoyed this one, you may want to read or re-read these: Autumn Joy, Plucking Weeds, Growing Pains, Thriving and Growing. Enjoy!

Photo Cultivate © Romolo Tavani | Dreamstime.com