Carousel — 05.28.10

Every Friday, I post my favourite links, posts, & resources from around the Web. Expect to learn, grow, & be inspired.

– – – – – – – – –

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. We Have to Talk: A Step-By-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations: I had a difficult conversation recently. This checklist made it much easier.

2. A Career Renegade Story: Howard Karp Rides Again: I loved this feel-good story for a couple of reasons. First, Howard is an awesome example of how one can actively go out & create the life of his dreams. And second, it takes place in my home state—New Jersey!

3. Say No: Excellent advice in this Tumblr post from Amber Rae about how & why it’s important to be able to say N – O.

4. Mindfulness and the Benefits of Meditation: Mindfulness & meditation should be required curriculum for grade-school children. Isn’t mental health a bit more important and/or practical than being able to find the square root of infinity? 😉 This post from Jared would be a great place to start.

5. 6 Reasons Why People Don’t Change, and What to Do About That: The key to lasting love in both romantic relationships & friendships is acceptance. If you can not accept a person—flaws & all—then perhaps it is not the right relationship for you.

Still, sometimes change is necessary & possible. This post contains good, practical advice for effecting positive change in your own life and in your relationships.

6. Feel Inadequate? How to Turn Lack into Love: Every now & then we all get the blues. When we’re feeling sullen it’s easy to get down on ourselves. I went through a bluesy spell last night. The BP oil spill has been weighing upon me heavily and causing me to second-guess myself & my own efforts to conserve our environment.

This post from Good Life Zen shares some wonderful tips about how to take those feelings of inadequacy and turn them into strength.

7. Criticism is never Personal: I’ve always been a big believer that, “What you think of me is none of my business!” Still, sometimes criticism can be stinging to the best of us. This post from the How to Be Rich & Happy blog teaches us why criticism is never personal and it’s so very true.

8. Never Forget Your Rights: Sometimes we take our rights for granted. Sometimes we forget that we have right at all. This post is an excellent reminder of the rights that we have & how we can use them to empower ourselves & create the lives of our dreams.

– – – – – – – – –

This weekend, I am headed up to the Catskill Mountains to celebrate Memorial Day with my closest friends & family. We will be camping out & enjoying delicious campfire foods around the bonfire. Can’t wait! I hope that you have a beautiful weekend full of love & light.

Always,

you may also like

  • Carousel — 02.19.10

    sunset, lake

    Oh, what a week! I’ve been busy catching up after my recent trip to South Carolina last weekend. (Thanks for all of the positive energy that sent my way—the presentation was a great success.) For the past two days, I’ve spent 14 hours participating in new database training, so that’s been… interesting. On the bright side, I learned a lot and it’s been exciting to see my company transform as we implement this big change.

    I couldn’t be happier that it’s Friday. I have lots of lovely adventures planned with family, friends, & loves this weekend. So let’s get the party kicked off with this week’s Carousel then. Shall we?

    1. self hatred: beneath sugar-coated criticism + self improvement: Danielle lays it all on the line in the post about how we degrade ourselves with little insecurities. The first step to stopping it, is admitting that you do it.

    2. Phoning It In, The hidden power of a gift, and Frightened, clueless or uninformed?: Three excellent posts from Seth Godin. How have I not discovered this brilliant man sooner? A couple of months ago, I won Seth’s book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us in a Twitter contest. I finally made the time to read it this past weekend during my flights to & from South Carolina. OH. MY. GOODNESS. The book was brilliant. Now I am head over heels for Mr. Godin and of course, have since subscribed to his blog.

    I’ll be posting a review of Tribes in the near future.

    3. Nine Things You Can Do Every Day – Even When You Can’t Do Anything Else.

    4. The Only Problem Standing in Our Way: I loved this post by Marc. It teaches us why sometimes the only problems standing in our way are the ones that we create in our heads.

    5. A panorama of tea: At Vagablogging, Colleen Wilde explores the drink of philosophers—tea! Her lovely descriptions of delicious tea across beautiful cultures warmed my heart.

    6. Giving Up TV and 8 Changes I Experienced After Giving Up TV: A few years ago, I moved out of my parents house & out on my own. One of the first decisions I made at that time was to opt out of cable television. There are a lot of things that I dislike about modern television: glamorization of sexism, violence, addiction; in-your-face ridiculous marketing, etc. I find that I am much more productive without the distraction of television—I read, write, create, love, and live more without it.

    In these posts, Steve talks about his initial decision to take a break from TV and his subsequent decision to give it up altogether. I think it is something that we should all consider. Currently, my partner & I have basic cable which is great because I only watch it once in awhile for programs that enrich me (cultural documentaries, environment/wildlife, home &garden, etc). And it’s a good compromise because he can still tune into his favorites, like Family Guy, while I graciously opt out… most of the time.

    7. “The View” of What’s In a Name?: Dr. Oz talks all about names. Why do some names evoke images of strength & beauty? What things should we keep in mind when naming children, or even pets? What does your name say about you? (I now this isn’t exactly self-improvement; but I’ve always been a fan of names. We’ve all got one!)

    8. be inspired: the “special problem” of strong women looking for love: Sarah Wilson writes about dynamics in man/woman relationships and how it is often necessary for men to be the “stronger” ones. I thought it was interesting & it made me ask questions about the dynamics/expectations within my own relationships.

    9. 8 Helpful Ways To Deal With Critical People: Lucky for me this isn’t much of a problem. I genuinely like criticism— be it constructive or even harsh. Criticism serves as a catalyst for me to be better myself or remove unkind people from my life. For me, criticism is a win-win. However, it hasn’t always been this way & there have been instances in my past where I could have used the good advice in this post.

    ———————————————

    That’s it for this week’s round up. Have a great weekend, friends. Remember to spread love & light wherever you go.

    P.S. I am super sore (in a good way) from a fitness class I took at New York Sports Club last night—Will Power and Grace—I highly recommend it if you have an NYSC in your area!

8 Comments

  1. Pingback: Dena Botbyl
  2. Pingback: Dena Botbyl
  3. Pingback: Dena Botbyl
    1. @ Tim – Absolutely. Excellent post on a really important topic. Hope you are having a gorgeous Memorial Day Weekend!

  4. Pingback: Dena Botbyl
  5. Pingback: Dena Botbyl
  6. Pingback: Dena Botbyl

Leave a Reply to Tim Brownson Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *