Resourcing the Revolution

inspiration

Rebel Yogi Roundup: Volume II

by Leave a Comment

Another month has come and gone.

Which means: a TON of new content has been posted to the intarwebs.

Which likely means that you’re still feeling overwhelmed about the sheer volume of possible reading material, and not quite sure what’s worth reading (and what’s a total waste of your time).

So, from the Rebel Yogi reading vaults, here are 4 of my favorite posts that I read this month.

Enjoy!

How to Get Unstuck in Life by Simply Making a Next Move — Any Next Move

In this fantastic post from Jeff Goins, he reminds us that most of the decisions we make in life aren’t going to change much at all. So rather than spending all your time trying to decide, your decision should be to ACT. Then, you can change things based on how that choice affected you.

One of the reasons we struggle to make better decisions is because we keep getting distracted with new things. Giving yourself a break from the noise will help you tune into the choices you need to make.”

6 Things To Tell Yourself When You Are Emotionally Wiped Out

Stephen writes this post specifically about emotional crashes, but there’s some good life lessons in it for all of us. Giving yourself permission to be in the moment, to feel what you’re feeling, and to give yourself a break: that’s something we can all use.

You don’t have all the answers to all the problems and it’s time you stopped acting like you did. You aren’t a made of steel. You are a human with feelings and a breaking point. Stop and give yourself a break, before you break.”

burnout-rocket-fuel

4 Questions to Ask When You’re Feeling Exhausted

Laurie prompts us to ask ourselves questions about what’s at the heart of our exhaustion, and to focus on how we can be radically honest with ourselves about our lives — both the things that are working, and the things that aren’t.

The cure for exhaustion is not necessarily rest. The cure for exhaustion is wholeheartedness.” – David Whyte

Why Living As a Goat Can Clear Your Mind

And now for something a little lighter… as you head into your week, take a look at how a different perspective can make all the difference.

knowlege-zen

Getting unstuck, learning to be okay when things aren’t all roses and rainbows, and a little bit of fun as a goat…

As we roll into the early days of summer, let’s all take the opportunity to let a little more sunshine into our lives.

Let me know what you think of the series — anything you’d like to see more of, less of— or, if you’ve read anything recently that should go into the next roundup!

Until next month…

The Rebel Yogi Origin Story – Part 3

by Leave a Comment

Back in April, a friend and fellow yogi requested that I do a more in-depth exploration of the “receiving the call” piece of the origin story. I’ve been mulling it over for long enough now that I think I finally have a proper response. The particular line from part 2 of this story follows:

That summer was a life changer. I went from armchair activist, signing e-petitions and not much else, to full out environmental activist. I was entrenched in the fight, had skin in the game, and was ready to take on the world. I had received the call loud and clear, and I knew that one of the reasons that I had been put on this earth was to save it.”

There are quite a few stories out there that involve the person who receives their call having a voice speak to them from above, some physical manifestation, or something a bit more obvious. To be honest, mine wasn’t quite like that.

My personal version of hearing the call was more of a certainty, an inner voice – that moment where there was no more hesitation or fear around the action that I needed to take, just the knowledge of what I had to do.

My certainty came with the words of one James Hansen, quoted by Bill McKibben in an email that went out to the 350.org mailing list. When one of the nation’s top climate scientists says that mining and burning a particular form of fossil fuel energy is essentially “game over” for the climate, it tends to get your attention. For me, it certainly did. I stepped up and became more involved in the fight than I had expected to – risking arrest, laying my body on the front lines, stepping up and saying loud and clear that if the fossil fuel companies wanted to wreck my planet, they would have to go through me to do it.

I tried to find the original post on the Tar Sands Action website, but things have been dismantled a bit since they joined up officially with 350. I did manage to find a post at another blog that has the full text of the email that changed everything.

So what does this have to do with you?

You’re a world changer. You wouldn’t be here reading this if you weren’t. But maybe you haven’t quite figured out exactly what it is that you are meant to do. Maybe you’re wondering if you’ve “received your call” but somehow missed it in passing; maybe you’ve been dabbling here and there, or throwing yourself full force into something you think might be “it” but you’re just not 100 percent sure.

My take is that if you have to wonder if you’ve found “it”… you haven’t.

It doesn’t mean you won’t. In fact, I’m sure that you will. But it’s like most things, in that it’s worth the wait, and it works a whole lot better if you don’t force it. If you find yourself in that not being quite sure camp, keep exploring! The exploration can be incredibly fulfilling, and worst case, you’ll figure out what “it” isn’t – which brings you one step closer to what is. And the closer you get, the more certainty will come with the path.

It took me quite some time and a lot of twisting and turning along my path to find environmentalism as a cause, and even more time to figure out that I had Rebel Yogi in my future. Do I consider any of the time or effort that I put in to getting here a waste? Absolutely not. Everything that I did, each organization that I worked with or cause that I championed, each step led me one step closer to where I am today.

So enjoy the exploration, savor the journey while you’re a part of it, and when your own “it” comes along, you’ll know.

—

Michael Margolis wrote a post recently about origin stories that provided the inspiration for this series of posts. This is part 3 – here are part 1 and part 2.

On Writing and Darkness (or: an external look into an internal world)

by Leave a Comment

writing-darkness_640We all have a face that we put on for the external world – a face that hides, to some degree or other, our innermost workings, our fears and our insecurities.

For some people, you can’t see the real person for the facade, where others are mostly transparent, letting their inner self shine through.

I like to think of myself as being of the latter category; I try to be true to myself in everything I do, and to just be me. That being said, I think even the most transparent of people have a side of themselves, an unconscious that lurks behind the scenes, watching and processing. In most people, that unconscious probably doesn’t come out to play very often – perhaps in dreams, or other moments where lucidity slips momentarily away.

What I have come to realize of late is that being a writer allows us to lure out that unconscious, to bring it into the light and to feed it. We live dangerously through our words, our writing conjuring up entire other planes of existence, places where we can bend the rules and play with reality. It allows us to stretch our beings and live through the characters we bring to life on the page.

And, my recent experience has shown that it can unearth an entire side of our selves that we might otherwise not realize existed. My author self is dark, and even when I write with a lighter hand, there is a snark to the humor. I don’t think it’s a negative thing – maybe the darkness that gets expressed in writing allows me to live my real life without that tinge of the unconscious hanging on. Perhaps it allows me to purge the unconscious onto the page, where it lives without clouding my day to day self.

There’s not much more of a point to today’s post, just an airing of a recent musing. That being said, I would love to hear from others who dabble putting pen to paper – do you find that your imagination takes you places that your “everyday self” wouldn’t dare? Do you find that your creative self is entirely different, or is there a blend of the two within?

As always, I would love to hear thoughts and continue this dialogue. (If you dare…)

Bookworm! (or: recapturing a lost love)

by Leave a Comment

bookworm_640Confession: I used to be a huge bookworm.

I taught myself to read when I was young. (Before you give me too much credit, my parents read to me every night from the time I was a baby, and I know that I picked up a lot of my reading comprehension from that activity.) If my memory serves, it was when I was around the age of 6 that I had a reading primer that I carried around with me, sounding out letters and picking out the familiar pieces. It didn’t take long to start piecing together words out of letters, and soon sentences out of words.

And then? I was hooked.

You couldn’t take me anywhere without a book. My parents severely limited the amount of television I watched (one show during the week, and one on the weekend – thanks, mom!), so I had lots of time to be a kid – I ran around outside and played with my dogs, kept myself entertained for hours in some part of my imagination or other, and read voraciously.

This carried on through elementary school and into middle school. Even when I entered high school, I kept my face in one book or another – AP English classes, stuff I read on my own, books my parents kept on the bookshelves at our house – it was all fair game. When I was in high school, I worked at an art gallery during semester breaks, and I read behind the counter when no customers were around; those summers, I would tear through a novel every day.

Then, college hit. I was in the Honors program at JMU my freshman year, as well as being in the marching band and the countless hours of required classes and ensembles for my major. I stopped reading for pleasure, because I simply had too much other work to do. My hours were precious, and usually spent in the basement of the music building.

Cue graduation from college, starting a teaching career, and the years that passed afterwards…

Somewhere along the way, I lost my love of reading. It got delegated to the “things that take time I don’t have” list, and started to gather dust. There have been several attempts to pick back up where I left off over the past decade, but none have stuck.

Now? It’s time for a change. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about why it’s important to spend your life learning, and reading is a huge part of that for me. To be a great writer, one must consume vast quantities of great literature, and success points to those who take time to read. I read a blog article recently that indicated that the most successful writers and bloggers usually read a book a week.

Just this morning, I read a Matt Madeiro post titled “How to Start Reading” – a timely reminder that building a habit has less to do with forcing yourself to get back into something, and more to do with taking small, consistent, achievable steps in the right direction. If you’re having a hard time finding your way back into your reading habit, I highly recommend that you pop over and read that article.

I’m taking bigger steps right now. I’m reading a Paul Theroux book at the moment, in preparation for my cross country Amtrak trip to Portland, OR. I leave in a couple of weeks, and I want to write about the trip – the Theroux is providing amazing motivation.

And, in the name of continuing education, I have a stack of yet unread books awaiting my hungry eyes. This is one restart that I intend to keep rolling – even if I have to go so far as scheduling in time for reading, it’s important enough that I’ll do it.

How about you, dear reader? What have you been reading recently, or are you like me and in need of a restart?

If so – small steps. Or big steps. Whatever works for you – just start!

Astrology (and other asides)

by Leave a Comment

astrology_640Ever have one of those days where you have a million ideas, but you just can’t get any of them to stick?

Today was one of those days for me. And, it just so happened that a friend picked up a copy of one of the local weekly rags and read my fortune to me. I usually don’t pay attention to astrology, but at this particular juncture in my life, it resonated with me:

A starfish that loses an arm can grow back a new one. It’s an expert regenerator. According to my understanding of the astrological omens, you are entering a starfish-like phase of your cycle. Far more than usual, you’ll be able to recover parts of you that got lost and reanimate parts of you that fell dormant. For the foreseeable future, your words of power are ‘rejuvenate, restore, reawaken and revive.’ If you concentrate really hard and fill yourself with the light of the spiritual sun, you might even be able to perform a kind of resurrection.

I dig it. With everything that has gone on in the past year of my life, it’s a time for restoration. It’s necessary every once in a while to dig deep and take a look at where you are on the path, where you want to be, where your energy is going. Now that I have a few more hours in the day, it’s time for some soul-searching.

Reawakening still in progress…

An Alliance of Awesome (or: Peeps – they’re not just for Easter)

by Leave a Comment

peeps_640I spent the past two weekends surrounded by world-changers.

Two weekends ago, it was four 12-hour days in Washington DC with the WeArePowerShift.org leadership team.

This past weekend was three 12-to-16 hour days in Minneapolis MN with the 350.org National Leadership Summit.

I’ll admit it – I’m exhausted. I’m drowning in work, overcommitted and maybe even *thisclose* to collapsing into bed for a couple of days.

And, this might sound crazy, but I’m loving every minute of it!

What makes these weekends different? Why would I push myself this hard?

It was all about the people.

While I did reference those disgusting artificially colored marshmallowy Easter candies in the blog title, what I’m really talking about is the folks who were with me these past two weekends.

Last year, I wrote a post about surrounding yourself with people doing amazing things. This week, I’m bringing that concept back to the table, because it bears repeating.

Surround yourself with the people you admire – the people who are doing the work you want to be doing – the people who are doing the seemingly impossible – the people you want to be like someday (when you grow up) – even the people who intimidate the hell out of you.

After a while, you might just find yourself being one of those people.

It’s amazing what a little bit of outside influence can do.

Give it a try. And while you’re at it, let me know how it goes!