Aug5

Wanderlust or travel as therapy?

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I’ve been away from home for a little over a month. It has been wonderful and mind clearing. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking abut what I wanted the life I live every day to look like in places I’ve never been to before and may never see again. For me, that is when I do my best thinking. In my own home I see the past, the things I should be doing, and all the future events on the horizon. In another space all of the good, the bad, and the ugly is cleared away and I can focus on decisions and directions. So, the first thing I learned is that I know myself.  I feel much clearer and my priorities are in order. I have a plan and I’m a person that loves a plan. I’m never happier than when I know where I want to go and I have mapped out my options and am on the brink of starting something new. In June I was overwhelmed and confused. In August I’m a force to be reckoned with. Travel as therapy. Do you think I could get my insurance carrier to pay for that?

“It’s a funny thing about comin’ home.  Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same.  You’ll realize what’s changed is you.”

-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button-

Aug2

What’s with the water works?

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“These Olympics are a disaster; I burst into tears every time someone wins a gold. It doesn’t matter what country they’re from. I’m completely unstable.” Chelsea Handler

First, let me say that I am not normally a cryer. I’m sort of that NY tough on the outside, or so people say. On the inside I’m mush, but I try not to let many people know that. Some of you have already firgured it out.  A kind word or someone else crying will have me quietly excuse myself or make a joke to change the subject, but most things I take in stride.

So you’ll understand why I was so happy to read comedian Chelsea Handler’s comment on the Olympics. Now she is one tough broad and if she is crying every time someone does well, I don’t feel so badly. Is it just me and Chelsea or are we all choked up all over the world? I don’t think I can take much more but if I shed a tear over fencing I’m checking myself in somewhere. Okay enough about crying, here comes the joke:

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is “God is crying.” And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is “Probably because of something you did.”

        – Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

Aug1

The Important List

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Have you ever noticed that sometimes, when you let go of trying so hard to make things happen, they just appear on their own?

There’s a bunch of you reading this right now and saying “No, actually.”

I know, I know it doesn’t happen nearly enough to me either. It usually happens when I finally say “F**K it. I don’t care. I’ve had it and I’m not trying anymore.”

Yesterday I spent the very, very… did I mention very… rainy day making lists. Lists of things I needed to do, lists of things I wanted to do and then more lists on how to do them. When I’m feeling overwhelmed or out of control I make lists of what is important to me. Most of the time it helps calm me down. Even when it’s a very long, seemingly insurmountable list, I still know where I need to start and what I need to do.

One of the few things on the list without a list of steps to make it happen was friendships. I haven’t been a great friend over the last few years. I’ve let many of my friendships fade away because I just haven’t made the time to take care of them. I need to change that.

It’s not that I don’t love these people, but when they called to get together I was with my kids, working, studying, going to school, etc… Something had to go and that was the only thing I could spare, although I really couldn’t.

So, recently I’ve been trying to arrange get togethers, coffee, drinks and/or dinner, anything to bring those people back into my life and off of the fringe.

All of the other things on the ‘to do’ list seem to pale in comparison to renewing these friendships. So, I’ve been working hard at it.

And then yesterday in the middle of all of that planning and list making a wonderful new friend reached out and just made my day. Truth be told, she made my month. Sometimes amidst all of the planning and making things happen I forget that wonderful unplanned opportunities present themselves and that friendships are what we all really need and belong at the top of the list of things that are important to me.

The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.
Joseph Addison

Jul31
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Shine Challenge

I like the sound of this.

Announcing….

a 31 day guide to embracing your authentic, beautiful self

so you can be lit from within to live your passion and purpose

and give your gifts to the world

Are you ready to choose you, appreciate you, love you and have no idea how to start?

Have you been thinking about taking the Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance  journey but didn’t know if it would work for you or weren’t sure about making a year-long commitment to you?

Do you want supportive, encouraging company and a little reassuring guidance on your journey?  Then shine is for you.

how shine works: 

Every day in August, there will be a daily post here at www.rosiemolinary.com that will offer you inspiration on your self-acceptance journey and  then guidance on how to take one simple step that day towards living in self-acceptance.  Complete that day’s challenge and come back and post a comment about your experience with that challenge and you will be entered to win one of many awesome giveaway prizes.  There will be weekly giveaways and an end of the month grand finale giveaway.

getting started:

Each daily post in August will feature a challenge.  Complete the challenge and come back and share about it- what did you learn, how did it challenge you, how did it feel, would you do it again, etc- as a comment and you will be entered in the giveaways.  Every time you comment, you add an entry.  If you complete and comment about the challenges on 17 days of shine, you will have 17 entries for the grand finale drawing and the number of challenges accepted to that point in each weekly giveaway.   The weekly giveaways will happen every Friday.

Want to talk shine on Twitter?  Just use the hashtag #shine.

There are also several different ways to get a few more entries in the giveaways.

#1-3   Sign up for my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, and follow me on Facebook.

#4-5  Follow Karina Dresses, the grand prize giveaway sponsor, on Twitter andFacebook.

If you do bonus entries 1-5 (and you get one entry per follow/sign up), leave me a comment here saying something like “I followed you on FB and Twitter and signed up for your newsletter” and I’ll add your entries to the giveaway.

Also, Karina would love for you to let them know that you are their new friend/ follower because of shine and this blog so feel free to post on their blog or tweet them that you are a new friend because of shine/ Rosie Molinary.

get to know the sponsors:      

Many amazing people have come together to support shine and offer those of you taking this journey wonderful prizes all along the way.  I want to introduce you to all the sponsors that have given shine a spark.  Check them out!

Round of applause to…

Polly Campbell, author of Imperfect Spirituality

JL Fields of JL Goes Vegan Coaching

Mara Glatzel of Medicinal Marzipan

Anna Guest-Jelley of Curvy Yoga

Jodi Helmer, author of The Green Year and other books

Lee McCracken of Yes Ma’am Tees

Julie McCue of You are Loved Designs

Michelle Marie McGrath of Sacred Self

Sally McGraw of Already Pretty

James and Mary Rose Taylor of Birkenstock Feet First, the Arboretum Shopping Center in Charlotte, NC

Special thanks to…

Karina Dresses for offering the grand prize giveaway of one of their dresses.  Got your eye on one of their near one of a kind dresses?  Order one now and just use this discount code (MOLR30) to receive $30 off any full-priced dress.  Enjoy!

Amber Karnes of My Aim is True and Body Positive Yoga for generously designing and donating the gorgeous shine logo.  I mean, seriously, could the woman be any more talented and big hearted?

Alright, we’re all in this together this month.  Let’s shine!

Jul29

Other people’s Sundays

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Sunday has always been the loneliest day of the week for me.

When I was a child it always seemed as though everyone had something else to do. I pictured big family gatherings with laughing and talking and plenty of food. No one was every unhappy or lonely in the other world of Sundays that I was some how not a part of.

When my kids were younger I always tried to plan something on a Sunday. I would have friends over and make dinner or go to the park or the zoo with them. I’d look around to see someone like me but found only the lovely family of four. Two children, Mom, and Dad all smiling and feeding ducks (fill in the your version of family bliss) and on their way to Grandma’s for Sunday dinner. Being a single parent, I was again shut out of this scenario.

I’m not sure why it never occurred to me that things might not have always been what they seemed. That not everyone in my imaginary scenario I used to torture myself was actually happy. Or if they were why that made any less of what happiness I had myself. Thier Sunday always seemed to be better and fuller for some reason. But I suppose that comparisons and imaginations do that to us sometimes.

So, on this Sunday morning, I’m spending a moment to be grateful for what I do have and I’m going to cherish the day that I have been given.

Happy Sunday.

Jul26

Don’t be a baby? Why not?

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I think it’s time for me to be more child-like. I’m tired of being adult about everything.

I was on the beach yesterday watching a family with small children. One curly-haired, blue-eyed, cherub of a girl complete with a yellow bikini making a sand cake for her mother and her slightly older, more serious looking, brother in his boxer bathing suit with small blue whales on them eating a juicy peach and singing a song I don’t recognize. They are adorable, sweet, angelic…oh wait he’s ripping the shovel out of her hand and screaming, “MINE”, she has her mouth open but no sound is coming out, she’s standing up, still no sound…wait for it, wait for it…WOW. She lets out one blood- curdling scream and falls backwards into the sand. Her brother looks on, unfazed, and then continues digging the hole he had been neglecting while eating his lunch. She screams some more and her parents, clearly embarrassed but not unfamiliar with the theatrics, try to quiet her. “Don’t be a baby”, Dad says, while her brother is completely absorbed in digging and singing.

Oh please, let her scream I want to say. How I wish I could do that. Just once. Like say when the guy stole my parking spot or when the woman on the cell phone cut in front of me in line like I wasn’t even there.

Right down on the ground screaming. Can you imagine?

I think we could learn a thing or two about feeling our emotions without apologizing or holding them in from children. How do we get so repressed? Of course throwing yourself down and wailing isn’t the answer but maybe more honesty in our emotions is still an option.

“Hiding how you really feel and trying to make everyone happy doesn’t make you nice, it just makes you a liar.”― Jenny O’Connell, The Book of Luke

Jul25

Soul Mates

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“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…”
— Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love