Every so often we get caught in the hustle and bustle of daily life. We wake up in the morning and rush to fix ourselves, get coffee and commute to work. But in the flow of accomplishing these tasks, we sometimes find ourselves losing contact in the present moment resulting in being unaware of our feelings, emotional, mental and physical well-being. Continue reading
http://sessionsdude.tumblr.com/post/104221096013/we-live-in-a-fast-paced-world-because-of-this-we
One of the most poignant letters i read from philosopher Martha Nussbaum on the importance of cultivating a rich inner life.
“Do not despise your inner world. That is the first and most general piece of advice I would offer… Our society is very outward-looking, very taken up with the latest new object, the latest piece of gossip, the latest opportunity for self-assertion and status. But we all begin our lives as helpless babies, dependent on others for comfort, food, and survival itself. And even though we develop a degree of mastery and independence, we always remain alarmingly weak and incomplete, dependent on others and on an uncertain world for whatever we are able to achieve. As we grow, we all develop a wide range of emotions responding to this predicament: fear that bad things will happen and that we will be powerless to ward them off; love for those who help and support us; grief when a loved one is lost; hope for good things in the future; anger when someone else damages something we care about. Our emotional life maps our incompleteness: A creature without any needs would never have reasons for fear, or grief, or hope, or anger. But for that very reason we are often ashamed of our emotions, and of the relations of need and dependency bound up with them. Perhaps males, in our society, are especially likely to be ashamed of being incomplete and dependent, because a dominant image of masculinity tells them that they should be self-sufficient and dominant. So people flee from their inner world of feeling, and from articulate mastery of their own emotional experiences. The current psychological literature on the life of boys in America indicates that a large proportion of boys are quite unable to talk about how they feel and how others feel — because they have learned to be ashamed of feelings and needs, and to push them underground. But that means that they don’t know how to deal with their own emotions, or to communicate them to others. When they are frightened, they don’t know how to say it, or even to become fully aware of it. Often they turn their own fear into aggression. Often, too, this lack of a rich inner life catapults them into depression in later life. We are all going to encounter illness, loss, and aging, and we’re not well prepared for these inevitable events by a culture that directs us to think of externals only, and to measure ourselves in terms of our possessions of externals.
What is the remedy of these ills? A kind of self-love that does not shrink from the needy and incomplete parts of the self, but accepts those with interest and curiosity, and tries to develop a language with which to talk about needs and feelings. Storytelling plays a big role in the process of development. As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves. As we grow older, we encounter more and more complex stories — in literature, film, visual art, music — that give us a richer and more subtle grasp of human emotions and of our own inner world. So my second piece of advice, closely related to the first, is: Read a lot of stories, listen to a lot of music, and think about what the stories you encounter mean for your own life and lives of those you love. In that way, you will not be alone with an empty self; you will have a newly rich life with yourself, and enhanced possibilities of real communication with others.”
“We live in a fast-paced world. Because of this, we fail to notice many things. For a change, try to take it slow today. As you go through your day, take time out to count your blessings. One by one, thank God for the the blessings that come your way. You will be amazed by how blessed you truly are.”
Here’s a praise Psalm revised by the author of the book I’m currently reading.
God gave us a gift of 86, 400 seconds today. Have you used one to say “Thank you’?”
I have always been in love with the color blue green, aquamarine, turquoise, anything bluish-greenish. The aura of the color just makes me feel at home and somehow close to what is ‘natural’. My mom’s love for colors influenced me a lot too. She would often wear clothes in hues of green, yellow, pink, blue, red and up to now whenever I miss her, I just open her closet and stare at her clothes reminiscing a specific clothing she wore during a specific day. I remember her collection of flats in lime green and light blue and I was lucky among my sisters to have the same size as my mom because I can borrow shoes from her. LOL
This day felt like a blue green day as well as in the past week. It’s just comforting to wear and feel something that is calm as as the deep blue sea and as peaceful as the green fields of grass. Perhaps serenity?
Here are photographs of me and anything in blue green.
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| I call this pair my SERENITY Shoes. |
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| Haha! Me in bluegreen (center) with my sisters. I know I didn’t have a choice wearing that color because I was always at the middle. |
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| 2007 I used to be a hippie-dresser in college, tie-dye shirt! LOL |
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| 2009-Bluegreen cardigan, during Diava photoshoot |
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| 2010- At home, playing with one of our beagles. |
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| In my room featuring the Green wall. |
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| Work |
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| 2011 |
I kind of stopped wearing bluegreen since the start of this year and was stuck to grays and then I got crazy for seeing my closet looking so boring! Found no red, pink, orange and green. So i’m back to buying colors again. And I love the summer palettes in orange and magenta and of course blue and green! Color blocking!!
and oh by the way, some color meanings I found at this site.
LIME
excited, motivated, anticipation, prosperity, money, hope, growth, luck, employment
GREEN
air, social identity, oriented to self acceptance, growth, fertility, abundance, prosperity, hope.
*ability to express unconditional love, forgiveness and compassion.
BLUE GREEN or TURQUOISE
cool, refreshing, imaginative, motivated, dynamic, calm, peaceful, joyful, relaxed, truthfulness, healing, meditation, tranquility, forgiveness, patience, sleep, dream, work
BLUE
A balance of the color brings intuition, inspiration, sincerity, peace, joy, tranquility, faith in oneself and trust in others.
The Joy Explore 