Wishcasting Wednesday - 8/3

What door do I wish to open?

The door to my heart.

To softening.

To seeing the light and goodness.

To loving myself.

The door to my heart is also the door to my unborn child.

The door to love.

The door to surrender.

The door to joy.

I will step through with courage knowing that sadness will accompany me as I continue to grapple with the passing of my father.

The door to becoming a mother seems like a massive transition and transformation.

I will need courage, patience and compassion.

I will chose and open the door to love, joy, and kindness. I will bring courage and authencity.

Wishcasting -- 10/27

What do you wish to shed?

1. worry about what other people are going think
2. a few more pounds
3. 15 minutes off my half marathon time
4. stuff that I no longer need or use
5. an issue at work that is stressing me out
6. disorganization
7. debt
8. being too serious and tired (I want to play more!)

Wishcasting -- 9/8

What do you wish for less of?

 1. anxiety/fear/worry

2. pretending everything is okay

3. too much stuff and clutter

4. television

5. feeling full of dread

6. fatigue

7. extra pounds

8. cleaning house

Wishcasting -- 7/7

What do you wish for your relationships?

The relationships I have been thinking about the most are my marriage and my relationship with myself.

I wish for my marriage -- more intimacy, more fun, and more honesty. We have been together for a long time and got married pretty young. We have done a lot of growing up and I think we are getting to know each other again. There seems to be a reorganization of our relationship that happens every few years. Not a bad thing. A bit uncomfortable at times, sometimes a bit awkward. However we always come out on the other side stronger. I want to go deeper and more real.

As far as my relationship with myself, I feel like I am starting from the beginning. I never thought about a relationship with myself. This is something I have discovered in the last year. I am working REALLY hard at this and it feels hard a lot of the time. There is a reorganization that happens here to, but it feels disorganizing in a lot of ways.  A lot of what I thought I knew is shifting. I trying to stay present, to not grasp, to get tied to an outcome. Easier said than done. My wish is to continue to get to know myself even as I am changing. To be patient, kind, and loving to all parts of myself.

Wishcasting Wednesday - 6/16/10

What do you wish to nourish?

nour·ish

tr.v. nour·ished, nour·ish·ing, nour·ish·es

1. To provide with food or other substances necessary for life and growth; feed.
2. To foster the development of; promote: "Athens was an imperial city, nourished by the tribute of subjects" (V. Gordon Childe).
3. To keep alive; maintain: nourish a hope.

I found I had to look up the definition as I was thinking about my answer. My very first instinct was that I wish (and need) to nourish myself. But then I was struggling to figure out what that meant. I am slowly learning how to care for myself. I have been thinking a lot about how it is difficult to mother myself since I was not mothered in a caring or nourishing way. I am learning that lesson on my own, by trial and error. I have found myself thankful for this though. I have developed the sense that I am much stronger for having to learn this lesson, even in this painful way.

I also wish to nourish my marriage. We have been married for 9 years and were pretty young when we got married. So much has happened and we have both changed in so many ways. I would like to find a way to nourish our relationship so there can be authentic depth and vulnerability. I want to nourish our relationship so there is less room for judgement and misunderstandings. I want to nourish our relationship so we can see each other with new eyes, to fall madly in love again, and to nourish each other for the people we have become.

Wishcasting -- 6/2

What do you wish to know?

Again an *8 things list, a la Magpie Girl. This is a list of things that I know in that deep down knowing way. They are things that I sometimes forget, sometimes doubt, but that have carried me through and revealed their truth.

1. The process is important

2. Good things take time (trust the process)

3. Things have a way of working out (trust the process, see a theme developing?)

4. People are doing the best they can with what they have

5. There is not one ultimate truth -- we all create and live our own truth

6. Feelings are really, really important and need to be heard and honored

7. Kindness and manners make the world go round

8. Belief in the power of relationships to heal and transform

Wishcasting Wednesday -- 5/12/10

What do you wish to experince?

In the style of Magpie Girl, I am here is my *8 things list of what I wish to experience:

1. Italy
2. radical self love and acceptance
3. boundless creativity
4. living in a single family home
5. my own competence
6. full engagement in a (UU) faith community
7. regular meditation/yoga practice and a silent yoga retreat
8. knowing how to feed myself healthy and nourishing food

Wishcasting -- 4/21

What do you wish to dare?


I am daring to uncover my creativity. I am writing more and exploring photography. I have always been creative, a kid who got lost in books, stories, and play. But my creativity went underground. It was something that put me in competition with someone and that was terrible. It was also something that I never felt I owned for myself and so never felt proud of it. I never inhabited my creativity. But I have come to understand that it is an essential part of me. If I can get passed my gremlins who say that it is not good enough, other people are better, that people will judge and laugh at me, etc. If I can get passed my anxiety, I can create beautiful and meaningful things.


I am someone who gets lost in my head and in ideas. The danger with this is that sometimes, I never take action. Change demands action. So, in order to uncover my creativity, to excavate it from my depths I am taking action. I am writing everyday at least 5 minutes. I am taking pictures when I walk the dog. I am also talking back to my gremlins.

Wishcasting -- 4/14

What do you wish to be gentle with?

GENTLE is my word for 2010. I really love when synchronicity appears in my life. 

What was my intention when I picked gentle? I wanted to be more gentle with myself. My gremlin says that what I do does not matter unless it is hard. So, I discount and push myself. I hold myself to a standard that is often impossible to meet. Then I beat myself up . And the cycle repeats. I am learning to except myself, flaws in all.

Wishcasting -- 3/10

What do you wish to say no to?

 

I want to say no to doubt and fear. Nothing good happens when these occupy my heart. This is true in lots of ways. It keeps me sitting on the couch and not trying a new restaurant. It stops me from reaching out to others. It keeps me from seeing new and creative solutions. 

I also want to say no to boundaries that make me uncomfortable. I am a complicated relationship with my mother. I often don't say anything when she is making me angry, uncomfortable, or upset. I work really really hard to not rock the boat. I know that this is true because of the consequences in the past. However, I feel like I want to move forward with my life and that means speaking up and protecting myself. 

One more thing, I want to say no to negative self talk. I want to say no to all the voices that say I am not good enough, that I am too much, that I am no good, etc.

Wishcasting -- 2/24

What do you wish to give yourself permission for?

i have no idea how to answer this. makes me think i need to give myself permission to find the answer.  makes me think of this...

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

Wishcasting -- 2/17/10

Where do you wish to make a difference?

 I know that by going to work each day that I am making a difference. I am confident that I have touched thousands of families. I love that I have found a job and a passion that allows me this opportunity.

This wishcasting made me wonder if there was something else I feel called to do. I don't think so. I feel fulfilled by my job and love that I touch lives everyday. The question that I have been pondering is how do I sustain myself in order to keep doing this work. The work is hard, it is stressful, it is easy to become depleted. I don't want to burnout. I don't want to end up in just a job, sitting at a desk. I know that I need to be vigilant about my self care, about how I am filling myself up to enable me to keep doing what I am doing. How do I stay fresh? Present? Passionate? and Joyful?

I don't know the answer. I am trying to plan regular days off. Trying to maintain a regular yoga practice. Eating right. Finding a way to stay connected to that which is larger than all of us. It is not easy. I try to remind myself that I chose gentle as my word for the year. So I can be gentle with myself for not having the answers. Be gentle with myself for having ice cream for dinner. Being gentle for myself when I feel frustrated with a kid's behavior. Finding love for myself so I can show love for others.

Wishcasting -- 1/6

What dream do you wish to explore?

 to discover and explore big love in a way that will change me. 

Wishcasting -- 12/30

What do you wish for 2010?

I feel a bit overwhelmed by answering this question. This makes me think... list...

1. run another half marathon (this would make 7)

2 run another full marathon (this would my 2nd)

3. figure out what grace means for me and how to invite it into my life

4. find a new church home (our old church was ruined by petty behavior...long story)

5. develop and stick to a daily spiritual practice

6. continue to find joy in my psychotherapy practice

7. be grateful

8. to have a baby

9. to make more art

10. be grateful

Wishcasting -- 12/24

What do you wish for this holiday season?

 

We don't celebrate Christmas as a Christian holiday. We recently joined a Unitarian Universalist church.  Honestly, it felt like coming home. It was a community and spiritual tradition that mirrored so much of how I have felt and thought over the years. Feelings and thoughts that often made me feel different and as though I did not fit in. Feelings and thoughts that I often did not talk about with others. But, to find a community that had similar values, ideas, and thoughts ... very special. This holiday season I am grateful to have found a community such as this.

My wishes for the holiday season are rest, peace, and simplicity. So often my holidays become cluttered with too many parties, gifts, and obligations. This does not feed my soul. It pulls me outside of myself and makes me feel uncomfortable, tired, cranky, and depleted. I am an introvert (despite my attempts to change). I am also really sensitive. These things I find are not valued by most and I have spend a lot of my life being ashamed and acting as if I were different. Mostly this ended with me feeling depressed, tired, and angry. My wish is that I can be in touch with these parts of myself, love them and care for them. That I can create quiet moments with my husband that lead to deep relationship. That I limit obligations that deplete me. My wish is also that through this discipline and practice, that I will be able to share my true self, my joy, and real peace.

Wishcasting -- 12/16

What do you wish to give?

I want to give kindness, love, and grace. I want to give people freedom and empowerment. I want to give of myself in relationship. I offer my gratitude for the stuff of life.

12/09 Wishcasting

What is your spirit wishing for?

 There are answers that come up immediately: peace, confidence, connection with myself, connection with something bigger than myself. But, I'm not sure that these come up quickly because they are the things I want most. Sure, they are important and I want to cultivate them in my life. However, I wonder what is beneath them. What are the things that are hidden deeper within myself that don't reveal themselves as easily or quickly? I want to be a mom and nurture life and hope in the future. This is one that surprise me a little as it is something that I have not always wanted. I want a deeper and more intimate connection with my husband. I also want to belong to a community. This actually scares me quite a bit. It means being noticed and seen by others. It means being vulnerable, making mistakes, showing my talents, and being accountable. All things that make me anxious. My spirit is also calling me to be more present in each moment. To get out of my head, to live form my heart, to be alive in each moment. 

I have only recently begun to discover my spirit and the larger spirit that has begun to call to me. I hope that the spirit can give me courage to take steps into unknown waters and provide faith that I have what is needed and that I am enough. I wish that the spirit will shine a light into the dark places of my soul and call forth the best of me. I hope that the spirit will illuminate beliefs that no longer serve and help me to help places within that have felt broken for many year.

Wishcasting

Jamie Ridler Studios provides a prompt every Wednesday to help get in touch with the deep desires we hold in our hearts.

Here is my first go at Wishcasting. Not just testing the waters with my toe, but jumping in the deep end.

 What would happened if every week you made a wish?
What magic might start to stir?

To wish is to dream. To dream is to hope. And to hope is to live...

My biggest obstacle to wishing is getting in touch with what my heart and spirit want. I have for a long time lived outside of myself and I became an expert in making myself small so as not to upset others. I became an expert in identifying what would please others. I became an expert in others. I still find it challenging to live life from within my body, my mind, my heart, and my spirit. If I took time every week (probably everyday would be better) to be still and listen for the voice inside myself. I honestly don't know what that voice sounds like. But, I can get still, I can show up, and I can listen. I can be patient, surrender to what I hear, and offer love to myself. Love and patience will help that little voice feel as though I am, for the first time, believe that my voice matters. 

Here is to getting still and listening to my heart to discover what magic resides within.