Author Archives: Lines of Beauty

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10 Ways to Enjoy Life More Right Now

 

If you can’t change a problem, move on.Thou shall not stew.

Stop getting stuck in your story about woulda. coulda. shoulda. and get on with doing what you love to do.

Surround yourself with loving, low-maintenance people who increase your vitality instead of rob it.

Remember that aging is part of the wondrous cycle of life. It is normal and it is what is suppose to happen, just like getting our baby teeth.

Take care of that pesky task that has been hanging over your head for way too long. It won’t take nearly as long as you think it will.

Have an orgasm.

Did I just say that?

Stop worrying about what other people think. It’s your life.

Don’t forget that human’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated. Acknowledge someone.

Get over your fear. Fear is normal, so embrace it and then you’ll get past it.

Take care of yourself physically, emotionally and mentally. Be your own best friend. It is the foundation for a good long life.

Photo by Jef Bettens, Limburg, Belgium

By Louise of Lines of Beauty.

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Cry Yourself a River

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I’ve always thought that if a movie doesn’t at least bring me to the edge of tears than it usually isn’t worth watching, unless of course, it’s a really good comedy.  Generally I tend to be a bit of a crier, but lately I have hardly shed a tear.

I thought I’d hit menopause and cry myself a river but so far this has happened only a handful of times. Which in one way has been a relief…if you know what I mean.  Still, having a good cry always makes me feel better, whether they are tears of sadness or of joy.

Dr. Christiane Northrup says that “crying is one of the ways in which we rid our bodies of toxins. Crying allows us to move energy around our body, and sometimes to re-channel it, or understand it a different way.”

Crying also helps us to release stress. Suppressed emotions can make us feel depressed and really need to be let go of. Crying is one of the healthiest ways to do this and to keep depression at bay.

Tears lift our mood because they release endorphins, just like exercising, that act as mood elevators and painkillers. That’s why we feel so much better after a good cry.

Crying helps calm us, as does laughter.

To weep… is to make less the depth of grief. – William Shakespeare

By Louise at Lines of Beauty.

Slow Love

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About a year ago I read Slow Love- How I lost my job, Put on my pajamas & Found happiness by Dominique Browning. I savored every page, and was sad to have it come to an end.

Dominique is in her fifties and lost her job as editor of House & Garden when the magazine folded at the end of 2007. Like so many people lately, she was suddenly out of work. At the same time her children had left home, and she ended a long love affair, as well as sold the home that she thought she would live in forever.

Having lost my knitwear design job after sixteen years in 2007, I could relate to suddenly losing the main thing that she so accurately says “defined her days, paced and regulated her life.” She had feared losing it for many years, and when it happened, it nearly flattened her. With the busyness of her work gone, she was left with plenty of time to think about life, which she writes about with bold honesty and humor. It is like reading someone’s diary.

I especially like her quote of Adam Nicolson’s from Sea Room:

 “At the back of that hurry is the knowledge that it is a screen against honesty.”

 

That is one powerful sentence.

Slow Love is about living life more slowly. As Dominique says, it is “the love that comes of an unhurried and focused attention to the simplest things, available to all of us, at any time, should we choose to engage…..Perhaps even importantly, slow love comes out of the quiet hours, out of learning from the silence that is always there when we want it.”

Slow Love is about finding peace. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it.

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty

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The Story We Continually Tell Ourselves


Ever since I first saw Dr. Christiane Northrup on PBS many years ago I have been an admirer of hers. Next to my bed is what I consider to be my bible: Dr. Northrup’s first book titled Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom- Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing. The book is about achieving optimal health and fulfillment through a mind-body connection. I bought it for my 40th birthday and reference it frequently as a source of sound medical advice about the body, and the mind.

Along with Northrup’s vibrant personality, she first stole my heart when I heard her say that PMS is a time each month when what needs adjustment in our life gets highlighted. Kind of like the things that we need to work on get put under a magnifying glass. PMS, I learned, is actually a gift, when all along I had been thinking of it as a time each month that I needed to disregard!

Dr. Northrup says many very wise things. Another great line of hers, is  “All healing, all flourishing, comes from the story we continually tell ourselves.”

We are what we eat, but we are also what we think about.

What we think about is what we become.

The video above might be one of the most informative and reassuring ten minutes you’ll spend this week, or maybe even all month.

 

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty.

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Revelation: You only have to be who you are

There are certainly times in all of our lives when we have to be who we aren’t…for instance when we have to deal with new challenges or step outside the comfort zone of who we have always known ourselves to be.

But in terms of day-to-day living, the older I get, the more I realize that for the most part, we really do only need to be who we are. This is very helpful for me to remember when I wish I was more like someone else- or that I was smarter, or wiser, or better in some way. It is certainly helpful to remember this as we age- as our sight starts to weaken, and our memory loses it’s strength, or when we don’t have as much energy as we use to.

Years ago when my kids were young and life was more hectic, I wrote on a piece of paper “If it’s okay with me, then don’t worry about it.” and put it in my wallet as a reminder to stay on course to my true self. It really helped, and I think it is partly what eventually brought me around to:

You only have to be who you are.

It’s such a relief don’t you think?

 

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty.