timshel

twenty something

[timshelandchai]

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: 'I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I'm going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?' –But it's nicer here... So you were born to feel 'nice'? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you're not willing to do what your nature demands? – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

[timshelandchai]

Nasturtiums

Joy beams from their bright blooms and balloon-shaped leaves. Veins to breathe and roots that weave between plant pots and climb up walls. Resilience in full color, thriving.

[timshelandchai]

What if I'm back on Tumblr?

[dutchster]

[eveshka]

Chosen.

[elionking-deactivated20191020]

If this were to happen to me i would burst into tears

[timshelandchai]

'Death And Other Holidays' Is A Perfect Literary Break

Marci Vogel's new novella spans a year in the life of April, a young woman blindsided by loss. It's the perfect length for a story, and the perfect balance of humor, anger, sorrow and beauty.

“Novellas are the ice-cream sundaes of literature. Not a whole meal, unreasonably large, messy, overflowing, unnecessary - and, for those reasons, rare and total delights. Novellas are too short to bog themselves down, but long enough for some truly satisfying twists and turns. Long enough, for example, to narrate a full year in a character’s life, and to let the reader watch her life change.”

[timshelandchai]

Austin, Texas.

November 1, 2018.

[timshelandchai]

Dad sent me this song last night. “Now that you’re in Texas,” he said.

I got my Texas plates today. It’s starting to feel like I’m gonna be here a while. Moving away from home has been so many things. Surprises, changes, and so much learned. A lot ahead, too.

We chose an apartment that doesn’t feel like home, so we are moving to a new place in a week and a half. I can’t wait to buy a couch, or a cushioned chair at least. Something I can sit cross-legged on, even an ottoman would work. I miss lounging, as funny as that sounds.

I’ve been uncomfortable in a lot of ways ever since we arrived. At first, the discomfort came as nightmares. Then restlessness and worry. Then extreme homesickness. Now, I can feel it driving me. It’s amazing, but in such a short amount of time, I really have grown stronger. I notice I’m relying on myself more. I’m thinking differently. The change has cracked open the earth beneath my feet and I’m looking into the crevices that grow wider each day, until the abyss starts to look like an invitation to climb in. New earth, it feels so good. I miss home and my family like crazy, but this new environment is changing every fiber of myself that I’ve been dying to feel different ever since senior year of high school. Change is good. It’s always been my biggest fear, but what does everybody say about facing your fears?

[cwote]

You are human. You’re allowed to have off days, okay?

[timshelandchai]

May 30, 2018. This trail in the rain is so peaceful. The raindrops don’t even reach you because the trees catch them all.

[timshelandchai]

[timshelandchai]

Reminder to self: no matter where we wind up, always find the nearest nature center and buy a year parking pass. This place has saved me.

[timshelandchai]

Before there were selfies, we called ‘em GPOY 😬💫 In other news - I CHOPPED MY HAIR!

[timshelandchai]

“Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, learn to accept the present moment as if you had invited it. And work with it, instead of against it. And make it your ally, instead of your enemy.” Pema Chödrön Photo taken this morning at El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, CA.

[timshelandchai]

Learning to Stay

“See yourself in the practice you are not able to access right now. See yourself in it.” - scrawled on a loose page of an old journal, without any credit. I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with that... somebody else said it, I just don’t know who. Credit to the universe for bringing it back to me when I needed to see it.

Also, grateful to come across Pema Chodron’s “Learning to Stay” series that addresses so much of what I’m struggling with in life right now.

All the following quotes are from the audible book “Getting Unstuck” by Pema Chodron.

“And then, if you want to heal, you have the willingness, you have enough love for yourself, enough trust, enough confidence that you have the wisdom and the openness.”

“We keep habituating ourself, and making the pattern stronger. So the definition of habituation is getting better at it. we get to choose what we want to get better at and mindlessly we get better at things that we don’t like about ourself, interestingly enough. Like our out of control anger or our low self esteem or our self pity or our fearfulness. And then the more we strengthen it, the more we do it. So it’s circular, it just keeps going and going, the urge arises, we do it, then it makes it stronger, then we do it more so we keep strengthening.” (This reminds me of the like attracts like principle of Ayurveda.)

“So really, interrupting the momentum of shenpa, which at this point is interrupting the internal dialogue - even though in itself, it’s not a problem - we come back to the breath and we just stay present with the breath and the feeling is still there. The breath, in my experience, does not repress the feeling. I experience it as - ventilation helps me to relax and it allows me to stay present with a feeling that I want to exit from.”

“From that she realized that the most powerful thing in the world, whether it was healing from abuse or finding the doorway to enlightenment, that it was the same place. It had to do with learning to stay. The willingness to learn to stay is the key, and lovingkindness towards the whole situation, self compassion, and compassion for others in the same boat.”

[timshelandchai]

Don't publish your first book. Because your name is on that forever.

Alicia Kozameh

[timshelandchai]

Freedom is something we need to get used to. We need to build it up inside.

Alicia Kozameh

[books-n-quotes]

“I tell myself I am searching for something. But more and more, it feels like I am wandering, waiting for something to happen to me, something that will change everything, something that my whole life has been leading up to.”

— Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed