Category: Sunday Letters

I’ve been digging in my collection of quotes again this week and found one from Harry Emerson Fosdick that made me stop and think. I like it when that happens, when a sentence or two makes me want to take stock and see how I can add more sizzle to my life.

Here’s Fosdick’s statement: “Rebellion against your handicaps gets you nowhere. Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world – making the most of one’s best.”

It reminded me of a story I once read about a man who was legally blind, yet, by training himself to focus on the small amount of sight he had, he was able not only to navigate his ordinary world, but eventually to drive a car. He went on to develop a highly successful system to train people with infirmities of various kinds to transcend their difficulties by devoting their attention to whatever abilities they did have. He took that “most interesting game” and played it for all it was worth.

He looked for the possibilities and made the most of the tiny sliver of sight that was his best. Then he saw the possibility of showing others how to do the same and made the most of that, too.

Have you ever dared to think of yourself as a “bundle of possibilities?” What if you did? What possibilities would you find? If you were going to make a list of the things that you considered the best of you, what would you put on your list?

And once you had such a list, suppose you looked at it and asked yourself how you could make the most of these things. What if you let your imagination run wild and blocked out all the “yeah-but’s” that tried to sneak in? What if you opted to play the most interesting game and to imagine how you could make the most of your best?

What would that look like? What would you do? How would you be?

The mere act of imagining your best self opens you to broader, more possibility-laden thinking. That’s a proven fact. Spend 20 minutes describing your best self in writing and see how you feel.

But what if you were to take it beyond mere imagining? What if you decided to go all in and play this most interesting game for real, to focus on something you did well, or were ardently attracted to doing, and made the most of it?

You could start with just one thing, one possibility, one of your favorite things about you and express it 2% better today than yesterday, by intention, because you chose to play the game. Then tomorrow you could do it 2% better than today, and so on. And the thing that was one of the best things about you would get even better and better, and it would pull some of the other things that are good about you right up with it.

Imagine how interesting life would become! And all because you decided to play this, the most interesting game in the world.

Wishing you a week of intriguing discoveries and ideas!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by InspiredImages from Pixabay}

I continued reading the “Sunday Letters” that I wrote back in 2015 and once again felt compelled to share with you the one that followed the letter I shared last week. Here it is:

First of all, let me share that my friend who broke his hip in the slip-on-the-ice fall last week is making great progress with his recovery and expects to return home this week. Thanks to all who sent him caring thoughts.

Because he’s had his bouts with clinical depression and often says, “Everything always goes wrong for me,” I’ve been grateful and relieved and very happy to hear the optimism in his voice and his anticipation of things he’ll be able to do for himself once he’s home.

There’s a creative power is positive expectation—especially when you learn to expect the best from yourself. I read a quote this week from an anonymous source that said, “When you become convinced that you can make a comeback from any adversity, then all of your creative forces will come to your aid.”

That’s more than a glib statement of positive philosophy. Our brains work hard to materialize proof of our beliefs for us, to find evidence for them. Wayne Dyer wrote a whole book about it called When You Believe It, You’ll See It.

From all the billions of bits of data that come to us from our sensory organs, our brains actively select out for our attention the ones that match what we hold to be true or that open doors or give clues about opportunities that we’re seeking.

It happens automatically, but you can speed the process along by asking Positive Affirmative Questions of your brain. Popularized as “afformations” by Noah St. John, PAQ’s generally begin with the word “Why” and then go on to state what you’re hoping to materialize in your experience. “Why am I feeling so confident today?” “Why am I healing so quickly?” “Why am I so creative today?” “Why am I so patient?”

The “why” part of the question sends your brain on a search to find answers for you. It can’t resist the challenge. Unlike ordinary affirmations, such as “I am so creative,” why-questions don’t give your brain a chance to argue with you or to dispute you. Instead, it begins to scour both its knowledge banks and incoming sensory data to bring you the proof you requested.

If your request is urgent, your brain will even go into a kind of hyperdrive to find answers. I’ll give you a personal example. I happened to drop a 20-pound log on my big toe last night. Hurt like the blazes. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” I yelled. But because I’d been thinking about this letter, I said to myself, “Why is my toe recovering so fast?” And even before I pulled off my sock to examine the damage, my brain said, “Because you put an ice pack on it right away.” And I did. Good thing, too; poor toe got smashed pretty well. But I do expect it to heal quickly, and I expect my brain to continue to giving me hints to help it along.

Creative anticipation is a powerful tool. It’s what’s behind the adage, “You get what you look for.” Look for the good, and give the process a boost with some Positive-Affirmative-Questions.

Now, why are you having such a fabulous week this week?

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Image by Anja from Pixabay}

Every Saturday as go through my day, I notice my mind casting about in search of the focal point for the letter I’ll write to you in the evening. I call this mostly subconscious process, the working of “the boys in the back room.” They’re the guys that put all this together, point me where to go, slide messages under the door and into my awareness.

I’m often quite surprised at what it turns out that I say. But I trust the process.

Today, I was inspired to go through a stack of my “Sunday Letters” from way back in 2015. That’s nine years ago. I opened it to March and pulled out a letter dated the 8^th of that year.

The parallels to events currently unfolding in my personal world were, to say the least, an amazing synchronicity. But beyond that, it put into words what I’ve been wanting to say for a while now.

I immediately felt compelled to share it with you. It’s meant for somebody special. Who knows? Maybe that somebody is you.

Here it is:

When the Bough Breaks

It was a week of sad news and an unexpected challenge.

The challenge wasn’t all that bad, relatively speaking. The drain for my kitchen sink froze, breaking a seam between two pipes, and before the squishy sound of the carpet under my feet told me there was a problem, my entire sink floor was flooded and water had seeped under the old tile beneath the carpet. I’m not happy with the situation, of course. But it’s nothing that can’t be repaired.

Besides, I’ve learned to bolster myself in the face of life’s normal challenges by flexing my bicep Rosie-the-Riveter style and defiantly snarling, “Bring it on!” Works like magic.

Sad news is a little more difficult to handle. On Tuesday, an old friend of mine called to tell me he was in the hospital. He had slipped on a patch of ice, fallen, and broke his hip. His general life situation wasn’t all that great to begin with, and this is going to be a serious setback for him.

I have two other friends who are enduring difficult medical situations, too. It’s hard to watch those you care about suffer. It’s hard even to watch the suffering of strangers half a world away.

But pain and problems are a part of life, a part of all of our lives. It’s almost as if they’re a necessary part of being fully human. They test our courage and our ingenuity and resolve. They keep us humble. They give us a chance to think about what really matters in our lives. They break our patterns and shift our view of things. They remind us that we’re mortal.

Confronted with my friends’ difficulties, I remembered Tara Brach’s helpful words: “This is suffering. Everyone suffers. May I be kind.”

When you’re the one who is suffering, it helps to remember that you’re not alone. Pain is universal; it visits us all. Be kind to yourself.

When you’re a witness to pain, let kindness be your unfailing flag. Be there, with a loving heart, for family and friends who are enduring pain. Bring them your patience and your cheer, your encouragement and your faith in their strength. Be there to listen. Be there authentically, with your whole heart.

That goes for emotional and mental suffering as well as physical ailments and injuries. Hurt happens on a lot of levels.

And so does healing. And the very best medicine is love.

Wishing you a week of kindness – given and received.

Warmly,
Susan

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Every year, I forget how deeply the beauty of winter trees touches me. Instead, I only remember how unpleasant I find the cold. But here I stand, in freshly fallen snow, in the midst of all these trees, bereft of their leaves now, and I’m caught in a spell of awe. I realize I don’t mind that the air is cold. And somewhere inside myself I quietly say, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

I say it to my spirit. “I’m sorry that I let what I labeled as discomfort eclipse the memory of the astonishing beauty of bare trees. And just look how the frost on this fallen leaf glistens in the morning’s pearly light!! “ Please forgive me,” I ask, “for overlooking such incredible gifts.”

Instantly, I feel a shower of bright, warm, unconditional acceptance wash around me. It tastes golden, like joy, and my face spreads in a smile. I am humbled by it, and I whisper, “Thank you; I love you.”

All this because of the forms of the trees, naked against the clouds, and the shimmer of light on this leaf. But beauty isn’t the only thing that evokes my appreciation. Sometimes encountering plain-spoken truth will do it. Sometimes it’s kindness in one of its myriad forms.

I happened to notice my copy of Letting Everything Become Your Teacher again yesterday. It’s been sitting on my coffee table for weeks, unopened. Seeing the title is often reminder enough. Everything brings the gift of fresh lessons.

For me, the lesson brought by February’s bare trees and frosted leaves is to be aware that not everything I label as unpleasant is so. In this case, I could see that cold was just a sensation. I could call it brisk or crisp as well as bitter or biting. Then, having reclassified it, I could let it go and see what else there was to see.

Remember the game I told you about where for five minutes you let yourself notice whether you‘re labeling things as either “pleasant” or “unpleasant?” (That’s all there is to it, in case you don’t recall it.) You just notice which way you’re judging things. Then you can turn the secret power-question on yourself, asking if your judgment about a particular aspect of yourself is true.

You know what you’ll find? You’ll find that it’s only a judgment, whether you currently agree with it or not. Realizing that’s the case is good because it opens you to options. It keeps you from overlooking things by slapping a judgment on them too soon. Things change. Our perception of things changes. The world truly is a kaleidoscopic place, you know. Try to see what’s in front of you with an open mind. Keep a good helping of openness handy. It will wake you up if you’ve fallen asleep. It will say “You think what?! Think again!”

You never know when what you thought was a barren February landscape was in fact a scene of stark beauty, alive and dancing. It could be. You never know.

Wishing you a week of newly renamed wonders,

Warmly,
Susan

Whenever I’m lucky enough to find myself walking behind an old couple holding hands, I feel my heart warm and my face smile. This is how I wish every Valentine’s story could end—fifty years down the road, having weathered it all, with a richer love than ever before.

It takes real commitment to make it happen. And it’s nice to see that some of us actually manage to do it.

If you’re in a love relationship, or hope to be, the key to making it last is appreciation. Did you know that?

Couples who stay together say five times as many positive statements to each other as negative ones. They find more reasons to praise and fewer to fault-find. They tell each other what they enjoy and respect and admire about each other. They thank each other for everyday acts of consideration.

If you’re not in a love relationship with someone, you can still benefit from putting the 5:1 rule into practice. It works in all kinds of relationships, and it even works for your relationship with yourself.

In fact, learning to appreciate yourself is one of the big keys to emotional and spiritual growth. A lot of us spend a lot of time beating ourselves up, pointing out to ourselves how we don’t measure up. My advice? Cut that out!

Kindness starts at home, and that means it starts with you being kind to you. Even to the parts of yourself that you don’t especially like. In fact, especially to those parts. They’re the parts that most need love if they’re ever going to heal. So you say to them, “Crabby part? I love you because you hold such high standards about the way things should be.” “Painful part? I love you because you’re crying so hard for my attention.” “Ugly part? I love your uniqueness, and the beauty of you that you don’t see, and the parts that you wish were different.”

Say “Hi, Sweetheart!’” to yourself in the mirror and mean it—because you are one, you know. Thank your fingers and toes and nose and knees for all they do for you. Take time as you tuck yourself in at night to appreciate all that you accomplished. Acknowledge the work you did, the things you enjoyed, the services you performed, and the kindnesses you bestowed. Thank yourself for your endurance and persistence. Thank yourself for your good intentions. Love the parts of you that were hurt or offended and comfort them; give them the understanding that they didn’t get anywhere else.

Commit to being your own best Valentine. And then pass the love along. I bet you five to one it will make your life sweeter and open the way to living happily ever after.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Marzena P. from Pixabay

I ran across an article recently about the difference it makes in one’s career success to have a good natured personality. People who make other people feel good, it turns out, are not only well-liked, they tend to get compensated with higher earnings, regardless of their skill level. So keep flashing that great smile of yours, and do all those things you need to do keep yourself in tip-top shape. (You know–eat wholesome foods, drink enough water, get enough sleep and keep that body in motion.) You’re so much more fun to be around, after all, when you’re feeling really well.

But even if you’re feeling a bit dragged out, you can still lift others’ spirits. Practice looking someone right in the eyes and telling them something they did well that you noticed. Don’t simply compliment a trait like how nice they look or how smart or strong they are. Instead, specifically mention something that they did well, with efficiency, or thoughtfulness, with attention to detail, or with obvious effort or preparation, or with apparent ease or grace.

Practice on store clerks and waitresses, on your partner, on your kids. According to some recent research in positive psychology, this one skill generates strong positive emotions for both you and the person you noticed. It creates a feeling of genuine human bonding. We all like to be appreciated.

 Just looking someone in the eyes and giving them a sincere smile can lift their mood, too—and yours. When a sincere compliment about someone’s actions doesn’t come readily to mind, practice this as “Step One,” while you work on noticing things that others do well.

A second skill you can practice to increase your value to others is to take time to listen attentively; it’s a rare skill, and it makes other people feel that they’re real for you. In fact, philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich says listening is “the first duty of love.”

Humor and optimism, of course, are fabulous spirit-lifting tools. Keep ‘em tucked in your pocket all the time. They can bring instant perspective and relief to a huge range of situations. You don’t have to be a comedian, just learn to see the humor in everyday life. I’ve found it great fun, especially when it’s one of those days when everybody around you seems a bit crazy, to imagine you’re all characters in a sit-com. It keeps you from getting caught up in the fray, and when you’re lightened-up, it subtly impacts everybody around you. As for optimism, as I wrote a couple weeks ago, just hold yourself open to the possibility that everything may work out just fine.

Notice. Listen. Be of good cheer. That’s the formula. Give it a try. After all, as the poet W.H. Auden said, “We are here to do good to others.” Then he added, “What the others are here for, I don’t know.”

I have a feeling Mr. Auden was well-liked.

Wishing you a generous, spirit-boosting week!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by CreativeMagic on Pixabay}

The week seems to have flown past, but I had a chance to relax over a cup of coffee this morning with my 80-some year old neighbor, Bob. He’s a colorful old codger who has worked as a farmer, mill electrician, and long-haul trucker. He’s a ham radio enthusiast and often tells me about flying his plane to Alaska one year to see if he could find a cousin’s grave..

He recently had a pacemaker installed and it’s taken him a few days to get his bearings. But today he was feeling great and was full of tales about his truck driving capabilities.

He told me about the time he asked Tom, the owner of a bridge painting company, why this big piece of equipment was sitting in the yard. “It’s too big to fit into the garage,” Tom told him. “Nobody can get it in.”

Bob looked at it and at the garage door, and back at the equipment. “Sure it can fit,” Bob said. “I’ll back it in there for you.” Tom said they had measured the thing. At its widest point, it was only two inches smaller than the door.

To everybody’s amazement, Bob hooked it up to his pick-up and backed it in, slick as a whistle. He grinned ear to ear as he told me the story, proud as he could be.

“Well,” I said, “You know what Henry Ford said, don’t you? ‘If you believe you can—or if you believe you can’t—you’re probably right.’”

Bob took that in and laughed, slapping his knees. “I never heard that one before! That’s pretty good.”

Have you ever accomplished something you weren’t quite sure you could do, but thought maybe you could if you tried? If you have, you understand Bob’s big grin. It’s a great feeling to have your faith in yourself validated, to stretch beyond what you know you can do into the untried and then succeed.

We all too often let fear of the unfamiliar get in our way. We worry about how we’ll look to others if we try something new and it doesn’t work out. But every effort is a learning experience; you gain knowledge about what works and what doesn’t. You expand your horizons. You build new skills; you learn how to work around limitations. Always, you can feel good about yourself for overcoming your doubt and hesitation, for trying something new.

And in most cases, if you really flub up, at least you have a good story to tell and, often, a chance to laugh at the mess you made of things.

We don’t often think of our daily challenges as requiring courage, but courage is exactly what you’re using when you dare to try something new. And as with any strength, you build it by using it. You gain confidence in yourself. You find yourself saying, “Sure I can!” or “I don’t know, but I’ll give it a try.” You start acting like “The Little Engine that Could,” chanting “I think I can; I think I can,” and making it all the way to the top of the big hill.

Thinking you can is the key. As old Henry Ford said, whether you believe that you can, or can’t, you’re probably right. The next time you’re facing a challenge, give it a try.

Wishing you a week brimming with confidence and success.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Miriam Müller from Pixabay}

We are, I found myself thinking, all wounded warriors struggling toward a Great Promise of some kind, feeling its pull in our hearts, the truth and reality of its call. We give it different names and have a wondrous assortment of interpretations of it. It doesn’t matter. It’s far larger than any of us understands and better than all of us together could imagine.

The fulfillment of that Great Promise feels so far away sometimes. But sometimes, more and more often, we get a sense that it’s just ahead. We expect to see it any minute now. We just have to make it through this one last stretch of tight darkness and there it will be, opening its welcome to us.

Meanwhile, there’s today. Based on past experience, we suppose it will go more or less as we expect it to go. It will have its usual rhythm of tasks and demands, its moments of rest and interruption, its flickers of of surprise and of appreciation, To have an ordinary day is a blessing you know.

A wise novelist whose name escapes me at the moment said we should greet every day as if it’s our first, or our last. Try one of those on for size. See how the world looks from there. I’ve been looking at them as if each one is my last, myself, cherishing the make-up of my Now. Nevertheless, especially when I’m lucky enough to be around infants, I let myself try to remember or imagine how the world looks when you see it for the very fist time.

But as I was saying, here we are, smack-dab in the middle of today, free to do with it as we choose. Thanks for choosing to spend some of your moments with me, by the way. That makes me smile. In exchange, I’ll tell you a story.

Dr. T was telling her colleague and friend Dr. P how frustrated she was that she hadn’t mastered this new skill she was working on. “And you started practicing this when?” he asked.

She said she had begun a week ago last Tuesday, and he smiled at her and said, “Maybe you’re exactly where someone should be who’s been practicing for less than two weeks.”

She got the point, and laughed. She immediately let go of the impossible expectation she had raised for herself.

We don’t get to our goals in the blink of an eye. They require us to hone our skills, to sharpen and polish them, to repeatedly practice doing the things that will move us nearer our target, over and over. That’s what a practice is. It’s building a routine with the aim of getting better and better at it all the time, giving it greater attention, getting more insight, expanding our understanding.

When you practice routinely, the distance to the goal doesn’t matter. The whole purpose of seeking mastery is to spur continuous improvement. All that matters is that today you will practice intentionally. No matter what you did yesterday or how many days have passed when you didn’t practice at all, or whether you think you’re any good at it or not, today you can decide to do your practicing.

At the end of his conversation with Dr. T, Dr. P said his grandmother once asked him how long he’d had his practice. “Over 25 years,” he told her.

“Well son,” she said, “You know, we’re always practicing.”

Nice that we get to choose what our practices will be, isn’t it?

As for me, I plan to continue being a Joy Warrior for a while. Feels worthwhile.

May all your practices bring you contentment and peace.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Alexa from Pixabay}

Long, long ago, in a world far away, I began my online writing career with a now-defunct site called The Magical Mirror Machine. It was a continuation of a paper newsletter that I sent to a list of people years before. The premise of the Magical Mirror Machine is that the world reflects back to us exactly who we are.

I remembered it this week when a bout of introspection got me to thinking about the way that we often criticize in others the very shortcomings that we’re most blind to in ourselves. If we paid attention to what the Magical Mirror was showing us, we’d have a good idea where we could use a course-correction ourselves.

Try it out. The next time you catch yourself criticizing somebody, think about what you want them to be that you believe they’re not being. Then ask yourself in what ways you are guilty of the same thing.

It can take a little digging. If you’re nagging your roommate because he always leaves his socks on the floor, the Mirror probably isn’t saying that you should be neater yourself. (Although that might be the message. Are you always leaving globs of toothpaste in the bathroom sink?) Instead, the Mirror is probably seeing through your surface complaint to a deeper issue.

It could be saying, for instance, that you wish your roommate would be more appreciative of the work you do to keep your environment clean and tidy. In other words, you want more appreciation for your contributions to the household. Hmmm. And just how appreciative are you of his contributions? When’s the last time you sincerely and specifically expressed your appreciation for the things that he does?

The way the Mirror works is that what you put out, it reflects back. If you want to get back something different, try putting it out. If you want to be listened to, listen more. If you want more affection, give more of it.

But don’t forget to look at the beauty that the Mirror shows you as well. When you’re keenly interested in something, the Mirror is hinting at one of your strengths. When you’re enjoying building something, it’s reflecting your creativity. When you notice how kind people are, it’s reflecting your own kindness. When you’re laughing, it’s showing you what you enjoy.

It’s these kinds of messages, the positive ones, that will tell you what will truly enrich your life. Notice when the Mirror is reflecting your best traits, and cultivate those. Learn what makes you happy, what touches your heart, what makes you feel strong and capable and confident, and make a point of doing more of those things.

We always get farther by cultivating our strengths than by trying to fix our weaknesses. And once you recognize what your strengths truly are, you can draw on them to guide you the next time the Mirror shows you a place that needs a little polishing.

Wishing you a week where you brilliantly shine!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Pexels from Pixabay}

Happy New Year, my Friend!

Even though this is my first Sunday Letter of the year, I’m happy to tell you that I have no intention of telling you how to make good resolutions or how to set goals.

But I do want to share with you a practice that has been especially helpful and meaningful to me for a few years now. I think of it as a kind of guiding light that shows me the way.

What I do is take some time at the year’s start to think about a quality I most want to develop or express in my life during the coming year, and then to pick a word or brief phrase to represent it – one that will act both as my reminder and my guiding light during the coming year.

You may have heard about this practice; it’s becoming more and more popular as people discover the power of it to keep themselves focused on an ideal that has genuine meaning for them.

To give you an idea of the kinds of things people pick, here are a few words-of-the-year that I’ve seen people adopt:

Productive

Learning

Healthy

Persistent

One Thing at a Time

Why Not!

Friendship

Loving-Kindness

Sobriety

Honest

Brave

Finishing

Fun

Grateful

Creative

Forgiving

Centered

At Ease

The phrase “Why not!” was my guiding phrase for the past year and it nudged me past the boundaries of my comfort zone, inviting me to try new experiences, and to be more confident and daring. It taught me to have faith in my ability to handle the unforeseen and to be more at ease about putting myself in unfamiliar circumstances.

I’m keeping my choice of a word private this year, but I can tell you that already it has begun to impact my life and to show up in surprising, interesting, and even humorous ways.

Choosing a guide word for the year ahead has been much more powerful for me, and easier, than making ponderous, almost guaranteed-to-fail resolutions. It has flexibility to it. It allows me complete freedom in choosing how to let its influence play out in my life.

To select a word or phrase to guide you through the year, think about what would enrich you the most, or what would bring you a heightened sense of well-being or mastery or satisfaction. You can think about what aspects of your life you’ve neglected, or about the kinds of things that would give you a good stretch, or provide the greatest sense of achievement, or fulfillment, or joy to your life.

That’s the biggest clue, by the way: pick something that makes you smile inside, something that says, “Yeah! I want of more of that!”

Don’t get all tangled up in having to choose the perfect word or phrase. Sometimes you don’t nail exactly what it is you were trying for with your first effort. But stick with whatever word or phrase you do choose for a couple weeks anyway. You’ve probably come close enough, and if a more precise word or phrase comes along, you can adopt it when it announces itself to you. Nobody’s watching or keeping score.

Once you’ve chosen a word or phrase, think of a way to remember it every day – jot it on your calendar, for example, or write it on your mirror or with invisible ink on the palm of your hand. Then play with it. Let it sing or chant itself in your mind. Remind yourself of it in the morning as you begin your day. As your day ends, look where it played out in your life, the ways it influenced your attitude or your choices. See what synchronicity it brings you. Notice the ways you noticed it. Think of it as an invisible friend traveling along with you as you go about your day, nudging you when choices and opportunities come along.

Think about it. See if a particular guide word or theme is calling to you. Keep listening as you go about your day. And when you hear it, tuck it in your memory. See how it plays out in your life.

It’s a lollapalooza of a practice.

Wishing you a superb week as you begin this New Year!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Larissa K at pixabay.com}