Try these powerful life principles to tap into your unlimited potential: The author of ‘Passion Struck’ champions proactive living—cultivating a focused, intentional engagement in every aspect of our lives.
This 106-Year-Old Psychological Rule Is Still the Secret to Peak Performance. A Harvard Behavior Scientist Just Explained How to Use It Today: If you want to perform at your peak, you want your stress levels to be not too high, not too low, but just right
Drivin the Bus at Mission Fed ArtWalk in Little Italy in the Piazza della Famiglia on the Main Stage, on West Date Street- Saturday April 27th from 12:30 to 1:30 Free, + you can explore the amazing annual art scene either before or after!
Strange Crew (Clapton Tribute Night) Saturday April 27th from 6 to 10pm at Duck Foot in Miramar at 8920 Kenamar Drive. No Cover and it’s Phil’s birthday so will be wild!
Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to try a digital detox, so I will catch you on the flip side.
Meanwhile do know you are enough, beware of compassion fatigue, enjoy the poem and humor, and consider unsubscribing from everything that doesn’t feed your soul.
Joy is non-negotiable!
Love,
Neville
“Enough” by Andrea Gibson:
Last night I painted a purple tree on my bedroom wall
I woke up this morning in a pile of leaves
The color of a million different faces
Thinking of that hand
That planted the seed
Of the family tree
That grew us all
And how each one of us
Will one day fall back to the ground
This morning
I was listening to my heart pound
Knowing with every single beat
That a thousand other hearts
Were falling asleep forever
On a day they never thought they would
And I know there are tribes of aborigines
That decide how and when they’ll die
After a hundred years or so
They walk into the desert alone
Offer up their breath
And within two minutes
Soar into a death
As beautiful as their life
And I was thinking I
Will probably never be enlightened enough
To decide how I want to die
So this morning
I decided how I want to live
What I want to give
What kind of song I want to sing
Now I’m no longer
Looking at my days like they’re a cup
Calling them half empty or half full
When they’ve always been enough
They’ll always be enough
To fill me up
If I stop thinking so much
And start drinking them up
Until I get so drunk and high on my days
I’ll be walking up to strangers and saying things like
“Hey, I know Jesus was born in a manger
But I woke at dawn today
To watch the earth’s horizon
Give birth to true rising sun of God
And I can’t stop singing hallelujah”
Can you believe we’re here?
Can you believe there are gods somewhere praying to us?
I want to be that nut on a bus
Who’s really a prophet
Telling everybody
“Smoking is bad
Stop it
You might be an opera singer some day
And how are you gonna hit the high notes?”
I wanna live like those high notes
That rise from the throats of old ladies
When they see little babies
Riding in shopping carts
I wanna start somebody’s heart like that
Taking ninety years back
So you’ll have sworn
You weren’t born
Until you saw me
Planting roses
In all the sidewalk cracks
So when you trip
You’ll fall in love
With someone you thought you hated
And now look at what that love has created
Look
There’s a sky
On her faded blue jeans
With a flock of birds
About to fly to my words
And my next line’s
Gonna rhyme with her eyes
And she’ll wink
And I’ll think I’m as beautiful as him
I wanna live my life
Like it’s a little league game
I don’t care if I win
Just wanna watch some little girl
Get her very first hit
Watch her father cheer so hard
He spills his beer
And decides to quit
I wanna split some woman’s
Tired eyes open
Wake her with her own sunrise
So she knows
There’s reason to be hoping
She’ll say
“There are stingers in my heart
But I’m sure that I’m a queen”
And that night
She’ll vow to swarm
Until every angry car horn
Is reborn a song
Of let there be light
Every angry war cry reborn
A song of let there be life
I wanna build the timid teenage boy
A microphone that will
Echo his rhymes
The same way
They echo in his shower
When he’s home alone
I wanna write poems
In the tone
Of your mother’s eyes
When she whispered your name
For the very first time
Poems that will make you go home
Pick up the phone
And call her
While I call mine to say
“You know those lines
On the kitchen wall
Where I grew
Taller and taller and taller
Put a couple more there won’t you?
Cause I’m growing up here”
No longer looking at my days
Like they’re a cup
Calling them enough
From now on
They’ll be overflowing
Since now I’m knowing
It’s up to me
To fill them up
The big idea: is compassion fatigue real? Can we really maintain our levels of empathy in the face of an increasingly brutal news cycle?
Unsubcribe from everything to start controlling the tech in your life:
Does the number of unread messages in your inbox leave you lightheaded? Do your thumbs ache from tiny-keyboard typing? Have you forgotten what your real-life friends look like without an Instagram filter? It’s time for an intervention:
Inspiration from the 20th Annual Nonprofit Governance Symposium at USD:
Last week I had the privilege and opportunity to help shape and participate in the 20th Annual Nonprofit Governance Symposium at USD.
The In the Spirit of Leadership session in the afternoon, included a 10-minute nonstop writing exercise, along with a mindfulness practice, and some affirmations.
While I love writing and word play, this was new territory for me, and the writing exercise unleashed another creative dimension of my inner self, that came out unedited, in one flow experience, with pen to paper for the duration, until we were told to stop and come back inside.
Thanks to Causmosis, Dr. G and Dr. Y for an amazing conference and unleashing a different aspect of my authentic self!
Here goes:
Causmosis Made Me Do It
Top of mind, this is an experiment in open cognitive/emotional expression,
Where I go, I do not know- just flow baby flow.
Towards the abyss, I cannot miss,
The arrow hits the target the eye cannot see,
The guru within comes out in me,
I am emerging, growing, nearly free,
Free to be fully me!
I stand in the hallowed halls of grace,
I cradle my young self by the face,
Mistakes are forgiven trace by trace,
The irony, the tyranny are dissolved in the synchrony…
Reaching out on bended knee,
Bruises do not tattoos be,
I am not blind, I surely see,
Into thee I see.
Into thee I see.
Is this my very first spoken word?
Birthed of creativity in the theater of the absurd,
Expressed from sorrow to be heard,
Why did I wait to flip the bird- to doubt, to fear, to lack of faith?
Affirmations simply cannot wait!
It’s time to walk, how straight the gait,
I’m living freely for heaven’s sake!
In symphony with those around,
I hear birds sing in the background,
I feel my feet right on the ground,
My spirit soars its heaven bound.
Causmosis sits to my left,
She wields her pen with deft and depth,
Inspiring artists want to know,
What performance plays in the “inside” show?
And so, I write and write and write,
My grip is failing- pressure tight,
Is this from gripping this little pen,
Or fear of failing littler men?
Who can say?
What do I know?
It’s time to end,
This delightful show.
WORD!
Great Things Are Happening EVERY Day, but you don’t Hear About Them:
These stories don’t bleed, and so they don’t lead but here is some positive news to offset all the bad stuff that saturates our media, day in and day out.
Happy Soul Food Friday! 