Month: March 2023

2023_BlogPrompt #38 – Roles

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There are stories we tell ourselves about who we are. This blog post will reflect on the roles we take upon ourselves… and those we are given. What are some of the roles you fill? What is a role you have rejected? If you take up the challenge and want to share, please add a pingback to this prompt.

Photo by Jacky Zhao on Unsplash 

From the moment we are born, we begin to accept the roles people hand to us. Son, daughter, sister, brother… these are some of the early roles that are part of who we become in life. And they work their way into the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Throughout our lives, we create these “roles” for the people we come in contact with: he is a nerd; she is a jock. When we are young—especially when we are in school and still living with our parents—these roles are reinforced daily, and we naturally accept them and come to believe they define us. We settle into these roles and all their limits as if we don’t have a choice.

Eventually, the roles we are given may become tight and constricting as we strain to grow to our full potential. Maybe we have discovered something new about ourselves that doesn’t quite fit with one of the roles we carry. Or maybe we want to strike out in a new direction, defying the limits of our role.

There are, of course, always choices. We can stay within the confines and comfort of the roles we’ve always lived; we can remain small and compact. Or we can expand our limits and our roles by trying new things and adding those to who we are. Adding allows us to become more than our original role but avoids the certain risk undertaken in fully breaking out of a role. And breaking out is the third option. We can reject our former roles entirely when they start to cramp our style. I imagine the Incredible Hulk growing beyond the capacity of his shirt, and it rips to shreds as his body morphs into a mass of green muscles. That is how you break out of your role, my friends! You make it memorable.

And so this is what I’m working towards. What and who I am matters to me and only to me. If I am not fitting into what others have come to believe I am, they will adjust and adapt. Over my lifetime, I have seen this happen time and time again. Those around me adapt to the changes and the growth that I undertake, just as I adapt to their growth. If they can’t (or won’t) adapt, they will find someone else who fills the role they once needed me to fill.

Those who keep you small are only filling their own needs, and they need to move on. Those who truly love you will welcome your changes. They will encourage your growth.

So if you are ready to change your roles, to move on, I encourage you to break out! Make it both memorable and worthwhile!

2023_BlogPrompt #37 – Breathe

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Breath is something we often take for granted. If we don’t breathe, we don’t survive. But sometimes, our breath can become tight or labored or uncomfortable simply from our reaction to the stresses of life. So today, I am focusing on breath and breathing. Feel free to share your thoughts. If you choose to take up the challenge, please add a pingback to this prompt.

In my current position, I have learned that I sigh a lot. Students who are studying quietly in the vicinity of my office will tell me that I am sighing. From my inside vantage point, I’m not sure if I am sighing or just remembering to breathe and center. It often happens when I am focused on a project, and I finish up one part or section and move on to the next. I exhale. Apparently loudly.

Life is crazy sometimes, and we need to breathe. Crazy can be a good thing, but sometimes crazy can be felt as way too heavy, busy, chaotic. Crazy can bring undue stress that pulls us up all tight in our core. When I’m feeling stressed, I take a deep, intentional breath. A cleansing breath.

But I don’t just breathe intentionally when I am working. I do so when I am walking or thinking or cleaning. When I am scrolling through social media, and I am stopped by comments that seem out of line, unnecessary, or jarring, I remind myself to breathe, and I keep scrolling. Or I put the phone away.

When I am working on a task that is frustrating and everything I do seems to go wrong, I pause and take a deep breath. I ask myself if I need a break to help me rethink my approach. Sometimes that brief pause is enough, but sometimes, I step away for a few minutes (or a few days) until I can come at the task with more patience and a better mindset.

Breathing is a way to remain centered. It’s a way to remind ourselves that we are human and sometimes need to step away. And it’s a reminder that without breath, there is no life.

Remember to breathe. Practice taking in deep, cleansing breaths. Make it intentional.

Breathe out the chaos and stress as you breathe in healing oxygen.

Breathe out the tension and frustration; breathe in the rest and the peace.

Breathe out impatience and breathe in grace.

Breathe a momentary pause in your day.

2023_#36: Weird Word Wednesday – Ailurophile

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This week’s weird word is ailurophile. According to Merriam Webster, ailurophile means “a cat fancier; a lover of cats.” What can I say? I can’t help that I find cats cute and cuddly and wonderful. What about you? Are you more of a cat person, a dog person, or neither? If you choose to take up the challenge, please add a pingback to this prompt.

I am an ailurophile. There is no question, and no one who knows me would argue that point.

Ailurophile comes from the Greek word “ailouros,” which means cat and the suffix “-phile,” meaning lover. There is also the word ailurophobe, which means having a fear of or aversion to cats. That second word is definitely not me!

I have a few cats who live with me. Four, to be exact. I think four cats is sort of teetering on crossing the line between sane and crazy cat lady, but it is solidly on the line. It is neither here nor there.

The fact is, even though I would love to add more to my clowder, I know four is enough. And I know what happens when I upset the delicate and every changing balance of the group. Even now, we have our moments of unrest. Adding more would not be wise.

And so I stay solidly planted on the line, enjoying being an ailurophile and snuggling with all my feline friends. ❤

2023_BlogPrompt #35 – Ideas

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There are these ideas that torment me. Constantly. Lately, I have been distracted with a big work project and a small surgery, and I have not been paying attention to my ideas. But if I don’t give them some air time, they will disappear. What is your relationship to your ideas? As always, if you choose to take up the challenge, please add a pingback to this prompt.

Ideas have been dancing a crazy choreography in my head, swirling spinning, but never coming together in a way that shows their interrelatedness. Until last night when they danced the choreography that pulled them together like magnets that have been drawing to each other forever, but finally moved just close enough to attract. And snap together.

Connections are funny like that. We might be connected to someone or something for a very long time but not know it—or notice—until some switch is thrown or some shift in the energy of the universe makes it undeniable. Once we see the connection, we cannot un-see it, and it changes how we move forward.

For me, and I suspect for other creative individuals, ideas are living and breathing in my mind. They are constantly in motion, constantly evolving, becoming bigger and brighter and faster and stronger until they get my attention. But if they don’t get the attention they seek, they slowly dim and puff out, eventually disappearing in search of a more attentive host.  

And so I am writing to capture the moment, to solidify the connection, and to let my ideas know I am still here. Despite the big work project. Despite a hobble in my walk. Despite my lack of attention.

To them.

I’m still here, and despite their fickleness, so are they. Flitting like butterflies. And lighting on the flowers of my mind. Creating connections, if only for a moment.

2023_#34: Weird Word Wednesday – Cakeism

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This week’s weird word is cakeism. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, cakeism means “the wish to have or do two good things at the same time when this is impossible. This word comes from the phrase ‘to have your cake and eat it too.’” I am all about having cake. (And eating it, too!). Write about your weird word… or your cake! If you choose to take up the challenge, please add a pingback to this prompt.

A slice of birthday cake

Today, I was introduced to the word cakeism. What a totally awesome word, at least the way I think of it—in terms of cake!

But the fact is, this word has taken on a decidedly negative connotation, in keeping with the phrase from which it emerged. It has been used a great deal in politics—to refer to the people pushing for Brexit, for example, who want the benefits of the European Union without actually being part of it. And in the U.S., there are many policy-makers who base their whole platforms on a policy of cakeism.

Let me be completely honest for a minute… I’ve never really understood the phrase, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” If I have cake, I’m definitely going to eat it. After all, if you have cake, you don’t want it to go to waste, right? In fact, I only have cake when I’m going to eat it, so I don’t see how these two things are in opposition. “You can’t have it both ways” seems a more fitting phrase to use in situations that require a phrase of this sort.

Meanwhile, all this talk of cake is making me hungry. I think I’m going to go buy some cake… and eat it, too!