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Photo Challenge: BELOVED
“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” ― Toni Morrison, Beloved
Photo Challenge: BELOVED
And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ’cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! ― Toni Morrison, Beloved
This week’s photo challenge topic – BELOVED – had me thinking of how our perceptions of the beloved can be expressed in so many forms; from the very specific to the evocative and even the higher expressions of ourselves. Our natural inclination on the subject is to look to our loved ones and that is fine. They are our first experience of the term… then it spreads out beyond that.
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Motivation Mondays: Disrupt Your Paradigms
“If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.” Stephen Covey
Motivation Mondays: Disrupt Your Paradigms
Definition: Paradigm Shift an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way. This discovery will bring about a paradigm shift in our understanding of evolution. Merriam-Webster dictionary
The first time I came across the phrase – Paradigm shift – a term coined by an American physicist and philosopher, Thomas Kuhn, it spoke to my teenage heart and prompted the reactionary in me to push the boundaries of the strict, conservative home I grew up in. The notion that each of us had a responsibility to make choices that could be both creative and liberating seemed so refreshing, and the rebellious youth in all of us would have seized the message and set off into the sunset transforming our beliefs and behaviors along the way. I did. I had to disrupt the existing paradigms of my upbringing to embrace a new perspective that was fraught with possible mishaps. I had to stifle the hypercritical voice that fed me an endless diet of my Catholic school Dos and Don’ts list and what could get me years in purgatory or potentially a permanent spot in hell.
You see, I was a shy child, bookish, observant and a day dreamer. It took my teen years and exposure to a wide range of new age thinking and old world philosophy to snap out of it … and try on a new exuberance. I liked it. It was a deliberate mental shift to be positive, passionate about life and adventurous that led me from the comfort of my upper middle class life in the UK to the uncertain, uncharted waters of life in the US as a student, immigrant, and minority female. It was as disconcerting to be in a new country by myself without my usual safety nets as it was exhilarating to possibly imagine what it could mean to reinvent myself. Yet, I threatened to leave many times during my first six months here. It took some time to embrace the idea that my move to the US was part of my effort to make a few mental shifts including the ones shared by Benjamin Hardy in the article below. Shift 1: The power of choice which is self-explanatory, and Shift 2: The power of context which recognized that with the right allies and a set of positive strategies, I’ll be just fine. And so would you. More later
READ: The 2 mental shifts highly successful people make by Benjamin Hardy
“Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you try to communicate with someone with a different paradigm.” Donella Meadows
Motivation Mondays: Disrupt Your Paradigms
Motivation Mondays: Disrupt Your Paradigms
Paradigms are like glasses. When you have incomplete paradigms about yourself or life in general, it’s like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. That lens affects how you see everything else. Sean Covey
How do we Disrupt Our Paradigms?: Over the years, I learned many lessons that made my geographical move bearable; even enjoyable. In life, we don’t always know everything that might cross our path but with effort, grace, patience and a stick-to-it attitude, we will get to a place within that is richly rewarding. While our external circumstances might not be filled with glitter, the support, stability and miracles of life will fill our homes and hearts with gratitude. But enough with my sermonizing, here are a few concrete steps we can all take to make that disrupting shift; a shift to get us out of a rot, out of old hackneyed beliefs and habits and on a path to self revelation and awareness. 1. Be careful of using limiting labels to describe yourself and your condition. I hear people use their age as a reason to not try new things or go on adventures. We are as old as we choose to believe ourselves to be. In this century, there are so many life-changing medical and wellness options available to us and with discipline and a passion for living life fully, we will thrive. Disrupt the belief that because you are …. you should be doing …
Act with Clarity and Confidence: 2. Fill your head and your heart with positive action driven affirmations. They don’t have to be filled with superlatives. Start with affirmations that fill you with life, love and laughter. Call yourself by your name with pride and gratitude. Being dismissive about who we are is not self-affirming. We can only disrupt our paradigms if we disrupt the labels and diminishing names we’ve held unto for years. 3. Be Preemptive and reject any negativity or hypercritical feedback by the toxic people in your life and limit their access to your space. Sometimes we allow people in our lives who serve to hurt us and instead of being clear about our line in the sand, we accommodate their behavior. Disrupt that people pleasing pattern for it will be a key factor to your survival. 4. Don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know and ask for help. If you read the article below, you’d learn that the many folks who found success after a certain age were not embarrassed to solicit the help of others, nor were they afraid to face the possibility of ridicule in their new venture. To disrupt our beliefs, and others beliefs about our limitations, we must be open to failure and to fail publicly. It sharpens our resolve and strengthens our backbone. What have you done recently to counter the expectations others held about you?
READ: Business leaders who found success after 40
The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for DEC 2017/JAN 2018 are:
12/01 – World Aids Day, 12/02 Abolition of Slavery,
12/03 – Start of Advent, 12/7 Pearl Harbor Remembrance, 12/8 Immaculate Conception, 12/9 Anti-Corruption Day,
12/10 – Human Rights Day, 12/11 Green Day, 12/12 Start of Hanukkah,
12/17 – 12/18 International Migrant’s Day, 12/20 End of Hanukkah, 12/21 Winter Solstice, 12/23 Super Saturday
12/24 – 12/25 Christmas, 12/26 Start of Kwanzaa, 12/31 New Year’s Eve
01/01 – 01/01 New Year’s Day, 01/04 World Braille Day, 01/07 Orthodox Christmas, Golden Globes Award
01/08 – 01/11 Human Trafficking Awareness, 01/14 Orthodox New Year,
01/15 – 01/15 Martin Luther King Day, 01/21 World Religion Day,
01/22 – 01/26 International Customs Day, 01/27 International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
01/28 – 01/28 Grammy Awards,
Are You Looking for Ways to Stay Creative in 2018?
– Join the Daily Post Post-a-day or Post-a-week Challenge.
— Join the BlogHer Writing Lab
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Photo Challenge: Variations On a Theme
“What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space.” Erwin Schrodinger
Photo Challenge: Variations On a Theme – Hudson River at different times of the year
In my case, I used the elements of these simple forms – square, cube, line and color – to produce logical systems. Most of these systems were finite; that is, they were complete using all possible variations. This kept them simple. Sol LeWitt
For this week’s photo challenge on creating variations on a theme, I’ve gone back to my favorite location – The Hudson River. I’ve culled photos that show the river from different perspectives, seasons, and moods. Because I live near it, it is a place of exercise, respite and creative explorations for me. No matter the time of year, I always find aspects of it to photograph and the setting always warms my heart and calms my spirit. For a body of water that spans 315 miles (507km) and extends from the Adirondacks down to NYC and Jersey and eventually drains into the Atlantic, it always feels like my personal portion of the river and there is an intimacy that one develops over time with that river. Fishermen, sailors, the lovers of bodies of water would relate to this notion of a huge river feeling so personal… It offers much more on each visit and for that I am grateful.
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