We will be reading our new President's book, "The Audacity of Hope."
I hope to see everyone there and am eager to hear your thoughts.
You may want to check out this Charlie Rose Interview of Barack Obama on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCZkZf6TmdE
Looking forward to seeing you all in March.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Bizzare
First- Let me briefly forgive myself for taking some time away from this blog. I hope all of you out there who will join me.
When I started to post this- the title kept on popping up in Hindi. Yes... my posting on the book "Eat, Pray, Love” popped up in Hindi I fixed the settings and disabled the transliteration and can now proceed in English.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to share about the book- which section I wanted to delve into the most- and since the universe presented me with Hindi- I shall answer back by offering my reflection on the prayer section.
For those of you who couldn't make it- we ended up at the frontier. For those of you who don't know this- I want to be a cow girl in my next life and the decor of the frontier is like a glimpse into heaven for me (particularly the John Wayne room) I digress.
I, like the author have traveled to Bali, I like the author, am interested in reaching the divine (isn't everyone- in their own way) Also , like the author, I have had a failed first marriage. I also lost everything- and then gained about 20 lbs.
I don't pray much. I teach. I work hard, I swim and I guess have an over active and distressingly urgent sense of compassion that I resolve into action when I get the wild hair to do so. I think I would benefit from a visit to an ashram or anywhere quiet to sort things out.
When Liz faced up to all of her shame from her past and her divorce and felt completely humbled- I knew exactly what she felt like. When the group commented on how they could only imagine... I kept on thinking about the first 9 months after my Ex Husband left me- and how the only way to sort through the mess I was left with was to accept with great humility what had happened. To feel the shame of the mistake that I made by entering the marriage in the first place- to draw from and drain my closest friends - to accept that I had made a mistake and had not taken care of myself nor honored that little voice inside me that kept saying "no, no, no" as I walked through each day of my first marriage. I had betrayed myself and was brought to my knees. I understood.
I think perhaps all of you at the table have had moments of loss in your lives where perhaps you felt regret- or longing- I do not know if the type of shame she writes of is really unique to women who like Liz Gilbert and I happen to be high strung perfectionists… I don't know. I think not. I was not able to speak of this at our meeting as I was too tired to open this up- and too scattered to articulate it well.
To really heal from points in my life where I felt like I had been thrown on to a train track, struck by a ton of bricks and then stumbled into a pile of cacti, only to reach up and grab an electric fence.. I had to wholly embrace how I arrived there. That included the choices I made that were not good for me. I was ashamed that I had betrayed my instinct. It has taken more time than I would have liked to bounce back from my short but disastrous marriage- but I've done it- and to learn from it I had to accept my choices- embrace my feelings of shame and then let them go..Really- I think facing shame is forgiving the past and moving on.
When I started to post this- the title kept on popping up in Hindi. Yes... my posting on the book "Eat, Pray, Love” popped up in Hindi I fixed the settings and disabled the transliteration and can now proceed in English.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to share about the book- which section I wanted to delve into the most- and since the universe presented me with Hindi- I shall answer back by offering my reflection on the prayer section.
For those of you who couldn't make it- we ended up at the frontier. For those of you who don't know this- I want to be a cow girl in my next life and the decor of the frontier is like a glimpse into heaven for me (particularly the John Wayne room) I digress.
I, like the author have traveled to Bali, I like the author, am interested in reaching the divine (isn't everyone- in their own way) Also , like the author, I have had a failed first marriage. I also lost everything- and then gained about 20 lbs.
I don't pray much. I teach. I work hard, I swim and I guess have an over active and distressingly urgent sense of compassion that I resolve into action when I get the wild hair to do so. I think I would benefit from a visit to an ashram or anywhere quiet to sort things out.
When Liz faced up to all of her shame from her past and her divorce and felt completely humbled- I knew exactly what she felt like. When the group commented on how they could only imagine... I kept on thinking about the first 9 months after my Ex Husband left me- and how the only way to sort through the mess I was left with was to accept with great humility what had happened. To feel the shame of the mistake that I made by entering the marriage in the first place- to draw from and drain my closest friends - to accept that I had made a mistake and had not taken care of myself nor honored that little voice inside me that kept saying "no, no, no" as I walked through each day of my first marriage. I had betrayed myself and was brought to my knees. I understood.
I think perhaps all of you at the table have had moments of loss in your lives where perhaps you felt regret- or longing- I do not know if the type of shame she writes of is really unique to women who like Liz Gilbert and I happen to be high strung perfectionists… I don't know. I think not. I was not able to speak of this at our meeting as I was too tired to open this up- and too scattered to articulate it well.
To really heal from points in my life where I felt like I had been thrown on to a train track, struck by a ton of bricks and then stumbled into a pile of cacti, only to reach up and grab an electric fence.. I had to wholly embrace how I arrived there. That included the choices I made that were not good for me. I was ashamed that I had betrayed my instinct. It has taken more time than I would have liked to bounce back from my short but disastrous marriage- but I've done it- and to learn from it I had to accept my choices- embrace my feelings of shame and then let them go..Really- I think facing shame is forgiving the past and moving on.
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