Category: Health and Wellness

John Stilgoe on the Magic Outdoors: Get Outside!

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Why is walking and wandering through the physical world so important?

While the architecture of the digital world is equally fascinating–we’re all increasingly inhabiting spaces that don’t have correlating spatial and locational constraints, and the architectural design of online communities, internet spaces, and experiences is an art in an of itself,–there is a beauty and magic to exploring the physical world.

Embedded within the world around us are clues and pieces of magic that tell us how it was formed, where it came from, and what the layered stories of space are. We inhabit the spaces built by generations, and I often think in my city wanderings that walking through an old city is like walking through a collection of brains from times’ past. The best of invention (or communication or understanding) turn into creation, and those creations tell us a story about the discoveries that happened. Tall buildings rose when elevator shafts were made possible and concrete, rebar, and steel upended the limitations to how many bricks we could pile atop each other. Better air quality mechanisms and water infrastructure (particularly the removal of thousands of pounds of liquid shit, made by humans), allowed us to put more humans into smaller spaces without the same adverse repercussions. The invention of air conditioning is credited with unlocking the southern states and making them habitable for “real” industry and office work in the middle of the 20th century. Continue reading “John Stilgoe on the Magic Outdoors: Get Outside!”

Do You Have A Life Philosophy?

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May your hearts, minds, families and homes be filled with gratitude and blessings. As part of this season’s focus on gratitude and thanks, I’m doing a huge number of THANKSGIVING GIVEAWAYS!  I’m giving away lots of good things throughout the entire month of November (and now I’m up until Christmas–I have more things than I can ever use, and there will be LOTS of giveaways). In the last post, I gave away a copy of Shane Mac’s book, “Stop With The BS,” and today I’ll be giving away TWO free seats to Molly Mahar’s “Holiday Council,” a 21-day course that helps you reflect on the year past and plan for the upcoming year, beginning November 26th, with the fabulous Molly (and I may even make a cameo in her interview series!). To win, see the question at the end–the winners will be chosen at the end of the day Friday, November 23rd.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be giving away three copies of a documentary, creating up a “Pay What You Can” day, and opening up new spots for the Start Something Project in December and January. Lots of good things! But now–to the bigger question, and the focus of this essay: 

Do You Have A Philosophy Of Life?

Do you have a life philosophy? A great goal so important that you’re willing to sacrifice other goals? Many writers today categorize this as your “passion,” your “purpose,”  or your “legend,” often with the intention that you should know what it is soon and figure it out.

Personally, I find this stressful to consider: we don’t always know what we like, and sometimes we have to get really good at something before we find it satisfying; the paradox of passion is that often, in my experience, you have to grow it. Continue reading “Do You Have A Life Philosophy?”

Reinvention Isn’t Easy, But It Is Necessary: 22 Thoughts from Julien Smith

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

It’s November, the season of gratitude–one of my favorite seasons. In the spirit of gratefulness, thanks, and learning, I’ll be giving away prizes with almost every single post all throughout November. Some of the things I have to give away include a copy of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s new book, “The Impact Equation,” copies of “I’m Fine, Thanks,“ (the documentary by Crank Tank Studios), a digital copy of Do Something, and a copy of the upcoming book by Shane Mac, Stop With The BS. If you haven’t yet, make sure you sign-up to be notified of new posts by email so you can win all of these goodies: there are a lot of giveaways this month!

Today’s thoughts come from a powerful presentation by Julien Smith at last months’ Powder Keg conference in Indianapolis, Indiana–and a chance to win a copy of his latest book, The Impact Equation. 

Reminders.

“If we don’t cannibalize ourselves, someone else will.”
(Steve Jobs)

Why did Apple make the iPhone? Continue reading “Reinvention Isn’t Easy, But It Is Necessary: 22 Thoughts from Julien Smith”

Show up.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Show up.

Every day, or as often as needs to be done.

Figure out the schedule. Perhaps it’s once a week.

It’s not about extremes. It’s not about doing a magnanimous or extraordinary thing on one singular day, or in one moment.

It’s the accumulation of micro-actions.

It’s about consistency.

It’s about showing up, even when things aren’t perfect, even when you’re not sure, even when you’re scared.

Show up.

It’s doing something, even a little bit at a time. Maybe a 10-minute walk during lunch, or a 30-minute light walk, rather than a run. But you’re doing it. You’re doing something, not nothing.

Today.

Show up.

“Desiderata,” by Max Ehrmann (1927)

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Wandering through the Presidio National Park in San Francisco, and overlooking the San Francisco National Cemetery. Each and every human, past, present and future: You are all loved. 

Desiderata (Latin: “desired things”), is a 1927 poem by American writer Max Ehrmann (1872–1945). It’s one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Sometimes I can sit and chew on each of these sentences a couple of times, soak them in.

Desiderata.

“Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its shams, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.”

Much love,

How To Live.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

My grandmother,  7/20/1926 – 6/15/2012.

I write to you from a space of confusion coupled with adrenaline; sadness mixed with exhilaration; excitement tinged with the loneliness of loss. Over the past few weeks I lost my grandmother, spent time in the hot Arizona desert city Tucson with my Grandpa and family while laying a little lower under the radar, and when I returned found out that one of my mentors and close teammates from college was involved in a serious and terrible accident while competing in her first Iron Man in France. While on the bike portion of the race, she was hit by one of the emergency ambulances and has been in a coma with a broken pelvis and head trauma since.

If emotions are like the 88 keys on a piano, I feel as though my left hand is playing a slow, rumbling sad song as a background melody, while the opposite side of the same keyboard is dancing out a light staccato tickling, my right hand moving quickly and lightly over the upper sets of keys on the piano surface. Emotions aren’t simple, nor are they serial; part of the complexity of humanity is the ability to feel multiple things all at once.

The reality of death and dying makes me ever more curious about the act of living and the aging process. What does it mean to live? How will we design our lives, as Richard Wurman has asked, and what will our legacy be? I’m reading and re-reading some of my favorites, from Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning to a book by Sarah Bakewell on Montaigne and the art (and act) of living. Throughout it all I can’t help but think:

How do we deal with life, the precious, wonderful resource and thing that we have?

Or rather, how do we live? Continue reading “How To Live.”

What you don’t see.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

What you see is not all there is

It’s late on a Saturday night, and I feel a slight pull to go out, to put down my notebooks, to wander outside and do the “going out” thing I sometimes like to do. I feel the tug, the urge to walk down to the local bars, to surround myself with crowds of other people, drinking, dancing, playing.

It’s what everyone else is doing, I think to myself. You don’t have to be writing or working right now. It’s not normal. I shake my head at that thought for a second, struggling with this idea of  “normal.”

What’s normal? What’s typical? How often does it change?

The funny thing is, even when I go out at night, put the dress on, find myself shaking, talking, bars crawling, people laughing, music pounding, dancing, heavy music reverberating… I still wonder. Is this it? Is this what there is? Is the extent of what’s possible? Are my only two options staying in, or going out? Is there something I’m missing, something else I’m not seeing?

The visual is limited, deceptive, yet it strangely beckons me. Everyone is doing this, I think. When I’m out, all I see are all the other people going out; I see the action and the activity. What I don’t see, however, is everything else.

What I don’t see right in front of me are the people at home, preparing for bed, watching movies, slowly unraveling from their days. People surrounding the dinner table, laughing; casual conversations. People at home, working late, start-ups, built over time; writers, pouring over books. Philosophers, musing over ideas. Yogis stretching in and out of another day of activity. Writers spending time behind the books, dreaming. Hustlers working four different jobs, filling their late Saturday nights with the tips from behind a counter, building a freedom fund to travel the world.

People, doing.

As I watch and wander, wondering about what it is that people do, I see the fallacy of vision, the limitations of judging the world merely by what we see: what we see is not all that there is.

Perception is not reality, although it readily distorts it.

What we know and understand to be true comes from our past experiences and from what we’re able to observe about what others do. We clue into Facebook for this reason: to see and be seen, to hear and be heard, to keep tabs on the people around us, to see what they’re doing. But this reality-distortion field, if you will, is based on the collective assumption that we’re each reporting our lives accurately. And we’re not. We can’t possibly be. The act of editing, processing, and determining what to share filters our collective report into the most interesting, unique, or share-worthy status. I’m going to guess that collectively, Facebook posts are more heavily skewed towards the extrovert, towards the person inclined to share, and towards the posts related to exploration, adventure, vacation, food, and friends. In short, everything I want to be doing. That is, Facebook is inherently biased. The system of “liking” creates a slow but consistent classical conditioning that primes each of us to post content that generates feedback, or to be, well, interesting.

The number of pictures I take of myself working, behind a desk, hiding behind my pajamas and thick writer’s glasses? Disproportionately smaller than the amount of time I spend behind my pens, paper and books.

Just like on Saturday night, or any night, or on the collective digital over-share of online social media, there’s a whole world of more, of things we don’t hear about and don’t see. The invisible.

Just because you see something happening one way doesn’t mean you, too, are obligated to do it. Call it the face of peer pressure, but you don’t need to do something–have sex, build a start-up, be successful by thirty–because everyone on television or in your local sphere appears to be doing so. You don’t need to dress fancy, or be extroverted, or drink extensively. You’re allowed to be different. To follow your bliss. To do what matters to you. And just because you don’t see something happening doesn’t mean there aren’t alternatives to what you’ve already seen.

The older I get, the more I learn to unpack and listen to the quiet power of my inner voice coaching me, telling me what to do, guiding me away from the pull of the collective, the pull of “normal.”

What is normal? Who defines it? Isn’t normal an idea defined by the average of what everyone else is doing? I’m not certain that I want to be average, or better yet, do what everyone else is doing.

Some evenings I get home and the bones in my body ache to move, my muscles tell me that despite the cultural normalcy that declares our collective culture sit still behind desks and overeat massive quantities of bread and potatoes, I have to firmly disagree, eating handfuls of lettuce and kale and lose myself in the fluidity of space. I spent years trying to quash this compulsion to move, and I’m tired of it. I can’t. I’m embarrassed only that it took me so long to recover my “essential self,” and be okay with dancing and wandering in streets to the tune of my body, as opposed to the tune of a giant cacophony of internalized social expectations. And so, I put on my tired and worn-thin running clothes and start out on the streets of San Francisco to wander a city in my feet, in my body, lost in my mind, lost in ideas. My words and thoughts tumble over the pavement, reverberating between the building spaces, dancing in the open spaces of our city systems, playing within the loose rule-sets that guide them, challenging each other, challenging me.

Other times, my body craves the warm solitude of being amidst of a crowd of quiet people, a coffee shop reverie with late night candles and the option to be alone, by myself.

And then, still again, some times I find myself craving a great shake-off, a dance, an agglomeration of people and bodies and warm dancing, the crowded room of bodies stinging with sweat, salt appearing on my skin through sweat and exertion, hips shaking in rhythm to the beat of dance music, throbbing, laughing, shaking off the cacophony of thought just to be. And then, I go out. I engage. I dance.

What do you need to do to be you?

Some people work late in the evenings to finish classes, to gain expertise, to chart a new path in a direction tangential to their primary occupation. I remember stories from one of my relatives about the evenings spent getting her teaching credential post-work, and how difficult, yet rewarding, it was to spend the time for a year to make a new opportunity for herself.

It’s true in the social space, too. Our “Facebook world” is designed to share the accomplishments, the awards, and in aggregate you can feel overwhelmed by the sea of information. Sometimes it seems like everyone else is going on magnificent vacations, having babies, getting married, or winning a Pulitzer prize.

What you don’t see, however, in the compression of space that the internet proffers, are the years and years behind each of those plans, the sacrifices made in exchange for the work put forward. The money spent on the time off. The years spent writing the books. The hours spend alone behind a guitar, learning, string by string and chord by chord, how to map the sequence of rhythms and sounds into your fingers until your body knew it so well your mind forgot the need to think about it and it just became a part of who you were.

In an online conversation with a friend about the difference between achievement and doing, he said,

“In general, I’ve found that our minds are trained extremely well by schools, parents and society such that we can develop a mental concept of excellence faster than we can embody it. I can totally see myself in my head acting a scene at Academy-Award winning levels but to actually bring that into my body will take a lifetime of work and improvement. So there is this perpetual gap between what we think is excellent and what we can actually communicate. With not just acting, most other things too. I fear with the Internet and social networking, we will only get further and further away from actually embodying and experiencing and more into discussing, abstracting and conceptualizing.”

Doing takes time, effort, repetition, quiet exertion, solitude, and sometimes, invisibility. The space to practice. The space to dream, explore, be, and do. 

It takes years, years, years, and practice, practice, practice to get to the place where you’re doing something in the way that you are shaped and primed to do.

What are you doing that no one else sees?

What other options are there? You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. The world needs you to be weird. Or better yet, to be you.  

Not what you think you ought to be. 

Just… you.

Invisible systems.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I’m staring at the giant salad box in front of me on the airplane, munching down on another pile of cheese and ham, trying to figure out if I’m even hungry. There’s still piles of salad left, and I’m cramped in between the person next to me and the window, navigating my book and my salad in my small allotment of plane space.

I stopped for a second, looking at the box. It was another example of the problem I kept seeing over and over again: 

Invisible systems that control your behavior.

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to eat what’s on the plate. You don’t have to eat any or all of it. But once it’s in front of you, your mind switches to auto-pilot and, for most of us, we consume everything in front of us until it’s gone. The salads I buy from the store come in a box with a fixed amount of ingredients. The size is set: “box” size. It’s the average size and portion determined by someone else to be suitable for every individual, everywhere. The best optimal price point for the business to create a product and move that product off the shelves.

Guess what? You don’t have to eat all the salad in the box.

It’s something small, inconsequential, but it’s huge. Your behavior is being guided by what Ramit Sethi calls an invisible script; the parameters are set forth, and then you operate within them.

Although my mother would kill me for telling you this, you don’t have to finish what’s on your plate, you don’t have to eat the whole hamburger, and you can eat three, ten, or seventy French fries if that’s what you want and how hungry you are. I’ve done all of the above. Sometimes I order an entire order of fries just to eat three of them and throw the rest of them away. I only wanted three–then the salt was too much.

But this post isn’t really about food. So much of what we do is dictated by the invisible systems all around us:

Finish what’s on your plate.
Eat everything in the bag.
Work only during certain hours.
Sleep only during certain hours, only for 8 hours. Less if you want to fit in. Brag about how little sleep you get.
Running involves hard work, sweating, and discomfort.
Work takes a set amount of time.
“They” won’t let me.
Corporate is evil.
I need to quit my job to be happy.
Once I’m an adult, I won’t skip, laugh, jump or play anymore.

Wait, what? 

What systems and thoughts guide your behavior? Are they true? What are the invisible systems that guide your actions? Mindless Eating is a brilliant book that looks at eating with relation to our habits and external cues. While the topic is about food, the subject unravels far more than what we put in our mouths: it’s about the psychology of why we consistently overeat, and what cues (from the size of a plate, to an experiment with a never-ending bowl of soup that caused subjects to eat FOUR TIMES as much as they would have if the bowl emptied normally) confuse and guide us so that we don’t actually have to think about what we’re doing.

When you become aware of these cues, these systems at play, you realize: you don’t have to do what they suggest.

And it’s not about willpower or fighting against yourself. It’s setting up the system in advance–and understand what actually affects your behavior–so that you can encourage the behaviors that you want. Don’t want to eat as much food? The best change you can make is to buy smaller plates. 

It takes a lot of listening, fine-tuning, and habit disruption, but you can condition yourself to see the invisible systems. To challenge what they are asking you to do.

What are the invisible systems that guide your behavior? Do you have to do what they suggest?

Better yet: can you change them?

 

The “Working Vacation” or How I Briefly Escape From Insanity

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I’m on a slow retreat, one in which I escape–although not completely–from the working world. I’m taking a long weekend in Catalina, off the coast of southern California, to spend time with my family, catch up on writing, and slow down on the work-crazy that sometimes takes hold. (Okay, fine, it takes hold all the time.) I’m grateful, excited, and so joyful to be pausing for a minute to let my writing, reading, and exercise dreams expand to fill the day in its entirety. I am thankful that I can do this… in fact: I really could get used to this… 

What is a working vacation? Sounds miserable, you might think. I’ll try to explain…

A working vacation

This morning, I got a note from a colleague, for whom I’m working on a presentation outline. I sent her a brief note that I’d be delayed in my presentation outline, asking if she would mind if I got it to her next week–and I confided that I was taking a working retreat to vacation and regroup, and to spend some time writing and observing. I worried for a bit that she would be upset by my lack of work ethic, by my missing the deadline–all worries I made up in my mind, naturally. Yet instead, she wrote back:

“Enjoy the space between work and leisure–it is a great place to work on big ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing yours.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s not about not working, per se, but taking myself out of context of everyday work, back and forth, to explore, dream, reflect, and think big. It’s when I play big, a phrase that Tara Mohr talks about, which I LOVE. It’s when I have the AH-HA! moments on the top of the mountain, when I shake off the insecurities and the banalities, when the frivolities of life ungrip themselves from my psyche, when I find that I’m no longer scurrying around in a HUGE FAT HURRY, cracked out on adrenaline and worried about getting everything done. In it, I realize that, YES, YES, I want to be working on these things, YES, what I’m doing is fun, and wow–my job is cool. More than that: what I dream of, create in my own space–these are projects worth pursuing.

Taking time off is so important as part of my process that I’m certain I wouldn’t be capable of the work that I do without regular, intermittent breaks. I’ve written about how the strict 9-5 doesn’t make sense to me, and I still agree: you need to work in the way conducive to greatness, not in a way prescribed by archaic remnants of past industrial societies.

I confess, too, that I sometimes hate posting the routine pictures on social networks of the “vacation,” where I look like I’m doing nothing all day, because it doesn’t capture, for me, what a working vacation really is. I’m as guilty as the rest of us (Oh, how I love photographs and pinning things on pinterest!) But I digress. I vacation. I retreat. 

It’s about big ideas. It’s about balancing movement and reflection with learning, consumption, and creation. And here on the island, scribbling in my notebooks, I wrote this in a long-form message to one of my friends: “I like to ‘fill up’ from inputs  such as reading, people, learning, studying, and then LOVE taking time to process, reflect, and percolate… mostly outside, in this crazy-beautiful world we get to live in.”

Because it is crazy-beautiful. We shouldn’t miss it with our heads down, cramming behind desks, adrenaline surging from the latest reprimand or arbitrary deadline.

No. It’s not about this.

It’s about taking time to live the balance that I crave, and really put into practice, now, the ability to be flexible, to work from anywhere, to change it up, to produce, create, and enjoy. To create moments of wonder and awe, and balance and love. To live.

How to take a working vacation

A working vacation, my definition: Taking a leave of absence from your current life and packing only the components that you want to bring, in order to be productive, inspired, relaxed, and restored.

Here are some rough notes about a working vacation–what I do, and why it works for me.

Leave your current context. Find somewhere new to go and set up shop. Go somewhere new. Some weekends in San Francisco, I’ll take a “writing vacation” and unplug from the internet, hole up in a favorite coffeeshop with my laptop, and work three back-to-back four-hour stints and just read, write, and write. The last time I did this, I wrote more than 15,000 words in a weekend. Exhausting? Yes. Exhiliarating? Completely.

Spend more than half the day away from the screen. For the better part of ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY, computers and sitting have not been a part of it. The greatest thing about vacation is that the computer seems less important, less toxic and controlling. Somehow, in the sounds of the rolling ocean and the vistas on the mountains behind me, the computer seems somewhat small and unimportant. I can’t help but get up and move around throughout the day. In an office, my patterns and habits become ingrained, and I forget that 10+ hours a day at a desk is not healthy or sane.

Find things to say No to. I’m on vacation from my full-time job–yes, vacation hours were used–and I told my colleagues I’d be in email contact for a few hours a day, but put up a vacation responder to remind folks that I’d be mostly out of touch. My personal rule? No more than 2 hours of work-related tasks per day. When you’re in the middle of coordinating big projects and deadlines, and pushing ideas forward, it can be hard to leave and carve out time for other projects. Sometimes it seems impossible. For me, the most important thing is leaving my desk behind and being clear on communication with my team that I’ll start back up again when I return next week.

Okay, so you should also plan a little in advance. It’s helpful for me to plan in advance (cue: when responding to people and coordinating life and projects, include a line that says, “I’ll be out of touch until Monday, but I can get back to you next week”). When saying No to things, I cue people in to when I’ll be available so I don’t leave projects or teams hanging.

Pack only what you really want to bring. This is critical. Leave the crap behind. Go on a vacation from obligation. Leave your unfound worries at home. Shirk some of your responsibilities, if you can. I said “No” to several projects and put them on hiatus to make space for other projects to have the full attention of my day. Often, I get so buried in the menial tasks related to organizing things and people, that I forget to carve out time for idea generation and creation. I set up an auto-repsonder on my main email accounts related to work and duties, and said no to bringing obsessive email with me. Instead, I packed 7 books I want to enjoy reading by the oceanside, a notebook with outlines for book ideas I have, a list of essays I’m working on, and two binders with my current projects that I want to catch up on.

Set goals. I love small time frames with clear goals. Even some weekends “Have no goals, except enjoy yourself!” This weekend, there are three big projects that I’m working on that I need to make space for, and have been impossible to finish in the wee hours of the night when I get home from my full-time job. Design projects; writing ideals; unfinished essays. When I started this long weekend, I set a project goal for each day, outlining the three major milestones I want to accomplish while here. Will I go on long bike rides? Absolutely. Jump in the ocean? (Um, have you met me?) Will I spend an hour in the jacuzzi bouncing ideas around late at night with my family? Of course. This is all part of it. And for several hours in the mornings and again post-dinner, I’ll be tackling these big projects because I want to. And I can.

Move. I have a personal head-over-heels relationship with fitness, movement, dancing, prancing, swimming, running, and all things movement. I think our bodies are marvelous, wonderful things, and the greatest sin of our lives is to waste them away by sitting behind screens. Vacations should be rejuvenating to the mind, soul, and BODY. Get out for a slow hike, a walk, a stretch, a paddle, a jog. My dad calls his running “happy trotting,” — this is your happy pace. Your place where it’s comfortable and fun, and where you walk when you want to walk and stop when you want to stop. But by all means, move.

But don’t take my word for it–Richard Branson says the most important thing he’s done for all of his productivity and success is to work out every day. Countless articles on fitness and health say that moving, walking, standing, stretching and meditation are world-changing for your productivity, success, and long-term health. One of my favorite outdoor fitness programs in San Francisco talks about why movement is important for life: “When people start to move around with others every day, they start to get a sense of what they’re capable of and what they’re built for.” Yes.

Make a dedication. On this island, the sun rises in the east over the Pacific, a luxury not experienced on the mainland of the States. When I wake up in the morning, I walk outside and greet the sun and the day, sleepy-eyed, in my pajamas, and I make a dedication to myself, to this process, to the projects, and remember how grateful I am to be doing all that I am doing. It involves a big stretch, some toe-touches, and a happy smile, among other things. This weekend, I’m dedicating to observing, watching, and rejuvenating my creative spirit by balancing playfulness with ample time for creation.

On a personal note, my goal is to write at least 1000 words every day in March, mostly short stories and explorations. I’ve been remiss in writing lately and it affects everything else I do. Or, as this excellent NPR article covered earlier this week–what you’re holding in your unconscious brain is actually killing you. Let it out. Take this as a cue that writing soothes and restores your soul and keeps you healthy. It’s not a hobby. It’s a necessity.

Hopefully these notes help you. Sometimes a weekend away, a day off, is really what your soul needs. Listen.

End note: Don’t miss out, or When I give in, I lose. 

I’ll close with a short story that crossed my mind while climbing up a hill earlier today on a big bike–a two hour hill that challenged my leg strength quite a bit. It was 3 PM in the afternoon, and I was a bit weary of reading and writing, and the lazy slump of post-afternoon stress started to inhabit my mind. I hadn’t worked out that well in a few days and my cells were starting to feel sluggish, lazy, full and fat with unused glucose molecules. I looked at the couch. I could just sit here for a while… I thought to myself. I had told Carol that I’d go on a big bike ride with her in the afternoon. My mind said, you know, you could just do it tomorrow.

But I knew, somehow, that I had wanted to do the ride, and that I would still like to do it. But getting over the sluggish me is not easy.

I should go, I thought reluctantly. Carol quipped: Stop thinking! Let’s just go! So I put on my helmet and we started up the hill. Yes, it was hard. And then, within thirty minutes, we pulled around the corner of the first hill and I saw this:

I grinned. I realized that I had, once again, almost canceled on a beautiful ride because I was afraid of a little hard work. We continued up the hill. How could I have missed this? Skipping out on a little hard work–a tough hour on the bike, pedalling, something which we are all capable of, and missing out on the views, fresh air, sunshine, and satisfaction? My brain is crazy! She is crazy, I tell you! And I realized:

In general, if I talk myself out of doing something, I like myself a little bit less.

Every time I concede to the monkey brain, I lose.
My brain is wired to keep me safe, to protect me from danger, to want to fit in with the crowd. It wants me to keep me from hard things. I have to fight this.
Because doing things, exploring, creating–this is life’s meaning.
Living with others, loving, having meaningful relationships. This is it.

So fuck the monkey brain. Do it anyways. It doesn’t know what it’s talking about all the time.
There’s a lot waiting for you if you’ll let go of the nerves, reluctance and fear.
And if you skip out on an opportunity, you lose.  

If I listened to it unwaveringly, I would miss out on so many opportunities for wonder, growth, and exploration.

To live is to work, and to love.

Paraphrasing the distinguished quantum physicist, Freeman Dyson, in an article from the Economist:

“To be healthy means to love and to work. Both activities are good for the soul, and one of them also helps to pay for the groceries.”

Yes.

I is for Integrity.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I was asked to write about Integrity as part of Molly Mahar’s “Blog Crawl” on self-love this February. Today’s post is part of Stratejoy’s The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt. Molly’s series is part of her bigger program called The Fierce Love Course. I had a chance to meet with Molly in San Diego last fall and see her amazing work first-hand, and I was delighted to be picked to post as part of this series.

I is for Integrity.

“Integrity is not achieved, attained, or accomplished. Integrity, like character, is built through quiet persistence, a structural consistency in all that you say, do, and believe.” 

“To have integrity is to believe fully in your soul, and your being. It is to act in accordance with yourself, and accept nothing less.”

Continual Motion.

I’m sweating. Breathing hard. I’ve got my leg over my shoulder, and my knee is creaking. My hand is slipping, slowly, against the rubbery mat surface and I can hear seventeen other students also breathing hard. I’m trying to get into a new space, move towards a new pose in my yoga class, and I can’t figure out if I’m going to be able to get there today. Leftover alcohol and chlorine equally permeate my sweat, and I curse having spent a week and a half doing nothing – why didn’t I say in shape? – I mutter. I forget it, letting the thought slide out of my brain easily. I’m here now. This is good. This feels good. But bad. Good lord, does this feel bad. Awful in a stretching, pulling kind of way. Unglamorous.

I drop my head, lifting my left hand quickly off the mat to wipe sweat from my face. Drops fall from my face to the mat, making it more slippery, less sticky. Damn.

And my leg slides, centimeters, stretching again, and all of a sudden I can point my toes. I feel it, a balanced, taught centeredness, muscles working together. My hands are aligned below me, my chest is centered squarely above me, my bones stacking neatly, my legs pointing towards opposite walls.

It’s graceful, but exertion doesn’t stop. Sweat keeps dripping. I’m still moving. I’m either working towards the pose or relaxing, dropping from it.

Movement, the teacher intones. It’s all about movement. You’re constantly moving, constantly shifting, always realigning and re-centering.

Yes.

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”

Commitment.

We made a commitment at the beginning of class, a small devotion to ourselves and our practice, and we chose a phrase or a word to stick to for the night. A set of words to recall when our brains freeze in mindless chatter, when our thoughts dart outside of the room and into the future or past, worrying needlessly about all things could-have and should-have and might-have and would-have. The words bring our loose cannons back to alignment, briefly, like five-year-olds in a small class, restlessly bopping about while waiting for lunchtime.

My commitment, my word, my phrase – how do I pick a word? I mused over independence, over writing, over being, over gratitude. My frazzled brain did it again, tumbling through a thousand thoughts, looking for a life-line and a mantra to relax into. Words float in: blessings, health, kindness, of being kind and grateful for everything, of releasing the relentless pressure I build up in myself to achieve and to do and to be. And then I my mind, like my body, stumbles onto a phrase that settles nicely in my mind, a gentle kindness that pulls towards a longer form of being, an integrity. “Move towards,” the voice told me: “Move towards your goals. Move towards integrity.”

Movement, this idea, resonates: there’s no need for a valiant, chest-puffing stake in the ground, a moment in time that says, I WILL DO THIS! As though now that I have shouted it, it is and it will be! (Insert multiple exclamation points). It is quieter, more peaceful, more consistent. It’s a set of actions, a layered being, a nuanced commitment to yourself over time.

Moving towards integrity.

“Character is not what you say, it is not what you boast. It is what you do when no one is watching.”

What is integrity? 

Integrity is knowing what you stand for. It is showing consistency in your actions and having a soundness of moral character. Integrity is doing what you say you’re going to do, even when no one is watching.

Integrity is being accountable to yourself.

In buildings, structural integrity means that the building will stand up – that the components, the joints, the system at play is sound and built well; that it won’t deteriorate or break down over time. It is a consistency and standard of excellence in engineering.

Some definitions include “the state of being unimpaired; soundness,” or another: “the quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.”

 “ You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do” – Henry Ford

For me, integrity is living up to my expectations of myself. It’s upholding both my thoughts and actions; it’s  behaving my best, even during the worst situations. It’s going to the gym, even if I don’t want to, because I made a commitment to myself. It’s planning ahead, giving someone grace when it’s due, it’s standing up for myself, it’s for chasing after your dreams even if no one else knows what you are up to. It’s believing in yourself and your dreams, and holding yourself accountable for acting in accordance with the best that you can be.

The opposite is also true.

We’ve all screwed up. Royally, beautifully, messily, fantastically. If we were perfect already, I suppose that would be boring. We mess up. We’re human. The difference is in how you decide to behave. What you choose to do before, during, afterwards. Whether or not you are capable of repairing a situation.

Integrity is not a stake in the ground. It’s not a goal that’s achieved. It’s a consistency of action, over time, that builds in what you say, believe, and do.

You’ve probably encountered situations where someone or something lacked integrity.

Perhaps it was you.

I’ve been there.

Last year, in Paris, traveling with my sister, I found one (of many) weaknesses in my character through exploring new settings, circumstances, and places. In particular, I found I had to question my ability to make decisions and what I thought was true about myself. I got beautifully, horribly conned in Monte Martre, duped into doing something, and I was rattled by the change in my behavior in the given context. More alarming than losing dozens of Euros was the red glaring flag hitting itself loudly against my conscience:

Do I really make good decisions? Am I what I think I am? Or am I actually just all talk? I babbled as such to my sister as we walked up to the top of the Sacre Coure, wondering how I could have wandered down a spiral of decision points that led to very silly—and alarming—behaviors.

Yet all was not lost: dissonance is good. Dissonance reminds us when our behaviors and actions aren’t in line with what we believe to be true about ourselves. Moments of discomfort tell us when we’re not behaving in accordance with who we truly are. The act of testing, of being, of doing–these are the moments that matter.

You’re not perfect. You’ll mess up. I’ve found that time and again, I test my integrity and sometimes fall short. Each time, I have to stop and analyze, wondering: what am I? Is this what I want to be? Do I like this?

Why does it matter?

Does it matter? You can brush it under the rug, sweep it away, think, “Oh Sarah, who cares!” – but it matters. It’s not about what other people think, say or believe about you.

At the end of the day, you’re the one that has to live with you. You’re there when you wake up, when you breathe, when you think, when you act.

I’m the one who has to sleep with myself at night; I’m the one who wakes up when I can’t stand how I’ve behaved; I’m the one who runs away from my emotions at times. It’s all just me.

And at the end of the day, if you don’t stand up for yourself, who will?

If you don’t do what you say you will—not for anyone else, but for yourself—then you lose trust in yourself. If you can’t keep your own word to yourself, and do what it is that you say you’re going to do, then what good is your word?

“Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.” –David Star Jordan

What does integrity look like? What does it feel like?

“I never had a policy. I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.” – Abraham Lincoln 

The things I’m proudest of aren’t the big goals, the declarations, the accomplishments. They are perpetual works of art, things I’m continuing to move towards. A quiet integrity, the knowledge that each action is cumulative, and that with each effort, exertion, breathe and stance, I’m working towards becoming what I say I want to become.

And from yoga, standing next, upright with my leg straight out, foot held in my hand, my upper thigh quivering with tension, my hamstrings stretched to their maximum, my opposite leg shaking silently in exertion. This is the act of standing, of balancing, an act of perpetual motion. Of persistent strain. Of forces, acting in opposition, continual moving back and forth against each other.

Tracy Chapman plays in the background: “… All you have is your soul,” she sings, deep and rich. She’s right. You’re all you’ve got. You know what you are capable of. And you know when you don’t live up to what you could be.

The most beautiful poses in yoga, in life, in being–are actually those of endless motion, of shifting and moving and realigning. Even in the long stretches, the folds and the bends, the fibers in our muscular systems shift and lengthen, releasing millimeters, day by day, until one day we wake up with our face against our knees and wonder,

Well, shit.

How did I get here?  

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This post is part of Molly Mahar of Stratejoy’s “Blog Crawl” for self-love this February. Find out more about The ABC’s of Self Love Blog Crawl + Treasure Hunt here. Check out the previous authors and their thoughts on self-love, here:  

The ABC’s of Self-Love:

A is for Acceptance by Molly Mahar: “Luckily, accepting who I am is more than embracing my (gorgeous, quirky, messy) imperfections. It’s also about celebrating my strengths, admiring my awesome, appreciating my honor.”

B is for Beauty by Rebecca Bass-Ching: “I now revel in the awe-inspiring beauty of courage, generosity, gentleness, kindness, sacrificial love, compassion, vulnerability, motherhood and respect.”

C is for Celebration by Dani: “Stand in front of the mirror and point out all the things you love about yourself. Instant self-love!”

D is for Determination by Ash Ambirge: “Want success? Make more decisions, choose more often, gain more control, and then take responsibility over your success. Period.” 

E is for Enough by Amy Kessel:“The resistance to loving ourselves disappears when we know, really know, that we are enough.”

F is for Freedom by Jenny Blake: “A fallacy of freedom is that we must not allow ourselves to be tied-down, lest we lock the cage on our ability to fly.”

G is for Growth by Justine Musk:  “It’s how you grow through and out of it – the meaning you make of it – that can not only shape yourself and your creative work (and your life) — but inspire others.”

H is for Honoring by Randi Buckley: “The deepest honor in the name of self-love shines light onto the whispers in the heart.”