This is a make-up post for Monday, January 23.  (Sorry, readers, I've been busy!)  

Here are some pictures and videos from the Women's March in Aspen on Saturday.  It was an honor – and a blast

Enjoy!

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Pride is a tricky concept. It's one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and based on this definition, I would agree. An over-inflated sense of self-importance is the hallmark of a narcissist. A sense of superiority. Ugh.

But then, when you do a search for synonyms, the original word – or at least the concept – isn't so off-putting. Delight, Happiness, Honor, Joy, Self-love, Sufficiency are all beautiful things. 

And what does it mean to be proud of your heritage? 

I suspect my great-great-great-great-great grandfather will be in the news more in the upcoming months. (Let's hope it won't take years, but that's another discussion). And, yes, I'm proud of him. Of having some fragment of his blood flowing through my veins. Does that make me superior? Of course not. Does that make me have an over-inflated sense of self importance? Not that, either. Though I do realize that some people will take it that way. 

You know what? That's their problem. I'm proud of being related to Grandpa George…

They said it better than I can…

.

This is a dark day. And I'm not talking about the weather, although it does seem like the heavens are crying in a lot of places, too. 

I'm not going to write more today. I'm just going to…

Face it

Feel it

(and, when I'm ready)

Free it.

Through action. Through awareness. 

Some days (or weeks or months or projects or relationships) feel like an uphill battle. Like we're trudging along, taking one step after another but never seem to get to the top. It's more like a treadmill or stair climber than a hike. 

One of the most profound quotes in my children's book says, "It doesn't much matter if we get to the top. What matters much more is what we do when we stop."  

While I still assert that's true (and confess it's one of my biggest lessons), it's still important to strive for something. 

I was talking with someone the other day who said to just "be" and stop trying to "do." She even suggested I write a book about "just being" with no attachment to the outcome.  

While I understand and appreciate her intention and advice, and acknowledge that I do, indeed, have an "attachment to outcome," I also believe in having goals. And that those goals should have some relationship to the amount of effort exerted. 

I created this graphic for my DrawSuccess program. The goal is to look at our tasks and projects (and really just about anything we do) and plot it from a scale of 1 to 5 on Effort and 1 to 5 on Reward. (There's a complicated microeconomic formula, but you get the gist). It helps you realize when you're laboring in the "E5-R1" box. You know, the things that you do that take enormous effort but the reward is abysmal. 

The uphill battle. 

The goal is to (a) identify these things and then (b) figure out ways to either increase your reward or decrease your effort. 

I'm sure I'll write more on this later. For now, it should give you something to think about.

Today I went skiing (as you can see – at 10:25 a.m.) – the conditions forecast was "partly cloudy." 

However, check out these photos. You have to search for those clouds. Almost as hard as you have to search for people waiting in the lift line. 

I remember visiting another town (which shall go unnamed) where their definition of a "partly cloudy" weather forecast was defined as "dark gray skies with a hint of a lighter gray).  

The message: It's all relative. 

I'm not saying we don't have gray days here. We do – and have had a lot of them. Thankfully, they usually accompany precipitation – rain or snow – both of which are welcomed and appreciated.  

Just like life, we need some gray days to help us appreciate the sunny ones. And even if there are a few (or a lot) of clouds, we need to "follow the sun." 

Yesterday ws MLK day, so I'm going to dedicate today's post to share his most meaningful quotes – which are as relevant (and important) today than ever before. 

As an artist, it can be challenging to get – and keep – a perspective on your work. The questions you ask yourself include "Who do I do this for?" "What do I want/expect from this endeavor?" and "Whose guidance should I heed, and whose should I ignore?" 

Certainly, you need to realize you can't please everyone. And you shouldn't try. Silence and holding back your thoughts might not make you any enemies, but it also doesn't attract any true friends, either.  

I'm still figuring all of this out. But I have decided that the only advice I will listen to from now on is encouragement. If someone tells me they loved a particular blog post or story or whatever and they'd like to see more like it, then I'll be eager and enthusiastic to try to please. But if they start off with criticism, or even a sentence with "you should…" I've decided I'm going to shut them down – or out – and write what I want and stop trying to please everyone. 

(I know – wish me luck. Or, better yet, encouragement).  

Whose way?

Go your own way…

I've written a few posts about fluctuating emotions. It happens to everyone; we all have our good days and bad days. Making – or having – a big change in your life invites more highs – and lows.

I've read several research studies that assert that no matter what external events occur in our lives, our internal personalities revert to what they were before after six months. Win the lottery, suffer a loss, get a new job, or even become ill, and experts say if you were unhappy before, you'd go back to being unhappy in time, just as if you were happy before, no matter the tragedy, you'd be happy again.  

I'm not sure I agree. At least not completely. It would depend, I think, on how conscious you were (are) during these changes. And, I suggest, how much control you have over the situations. Not only control over what happens, but also control over how you respond. 

The chart on this page is from the Abraham-Hicks "Emotional Guidance Scale." It's similar to a few other scales of energy/emotion, including David Hawkins' "Power vs. Force" scale. The message in each is do define and demonstrate the levels of emotions we can go through, so we can identify them when they happen. 

As the country – and planet – faces dramatic and potentially devastating change, many of us vacillate between Hopelessness (the bottom of the scale) and Anger, Blame and Worry.

Personally, I believe that Anger is a more empowered emotion than Blame, by the way. At least there's more energy behind it, and we can rally that energy to create change. 

I don't have the answers in this post. I just wanted to help the readers identify what many of us are going through. And, as they say, awareness is the first step. 

In the meantime, my advice is to do whatever you can that gives you joy. 

Do you talk to your body? If so, what do you say? To you treat him/her like friend or foe? Is it a one-way or a two-way conversation? Do you really LISTEN to what he or she is trying to tell you? 

My time here in Aspen has shifted my dialogue with my body/Inner Self. Before, "she" had slipped into the habits I lent to her, and for the most part she had been obedient. 

I can't blame "her" for the Costco tuna poisoning. She tried to warn me, but I missed the signs. It came on gradually, and with everything else that was going on in my life (my mother's illness and death), it just happened. 

But moving provided its own challenges, as anyone who reads this blog knows. Any time you make such a significant change in your life, your body must change along with you – and vice versa. I had to learn to listen to new signals she was emitting, just as she needed to learn to communicate with me in a way that I would understand. 

Now that a significant part of that trauma is behind "us," we're figuring things out day by day as the seasons change. 

The good thing about her is that she loves physical activity. I suppose all bodies do, as long as they feel like their "owner" (their "mind") is a partner in the matter. If the mind pushes the body too hard, the body rebels. If the mind denies the body its pleasures, the body will "steal" them when he/she/it can. 

Our exercise routine in Aspen is quite different from the daily habits in Atlanta. I still try to work out 6-7 days a week for 1-2 hours at a time, but since my workouts are all outdoors now, there are factors beyond my/our control. Skiing, in particular, isn't such fun for either of us when the weather or conditions aren't favorable. 

So the solution – again – is to make sure she and I are aligned on our goals. That she is as excited to get out there as I am. And that I listen to her when she's ready to quit for the day. Pushing her will only result in her pushing me back. And no one wins when that happens.