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Tag Archives: spirituality

Happy Tears.

23 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by Laura Max Nelson in Balance, Health and Wellness, People Profile, Spirituality, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

authenticity, courage, inspiration, recovery, spirituality, theellenshow, wellness

Remember when the whole “Ellen DeGeneres and her Dog” fiasco happened? A re-cap in case you missed it:

Talk show host/ love-of-my-life-if-I-were-gay Ellen DeGeneres had adopted a dog and given it away to a young girl and her family, only to find out she’d breached the contract of her adoption by giving the dog to new owners.  The adoption agency paid a visit to the home of the young girl and her family to whom Ellen had given the dog and reclaimed the puppy, saying it was now property of the agency since Ellen wasn’t technically allowed to give the dog to another family.  The next day on her show, Ellen graced her live audience and millions of TV viewers around the world sobbing in tears.  Explaining what had happened and that she was desperately fighting to get the agency to return the dog to the sweet and now very sad recipient of her pup, she made no apologies for her expression of grief, saying that it just wouldn’t be “her” to act like she was happy when she was feeling so upset. Here’s the actual clip:

I was in awe when I watched this – perhaps because if I were to grace an audience of millions everyday and be that authentic, there would probably be a lot more tear-filled episodes of my show than just the one that Ellen has had. To share who we are with the world, to observe courageous vulnerability as sociologist Brene Brown refers to it, can be a very tall order.   Ellen has always moved me with her courage, and the way she has used it to set other people free.  As a friend of mine put it recently, she gave the gift of saying “Hey. Me too.”

In a world that says “be yourself, except don’t,” I think we’re all feeling that desire to hear “me, too” in some way. It was recently that I realized the only people who I tend to compare myself with and think I need to “be more like” are people who I’ve only met once … or people who I don’t know very well.

In walking around the world recently, I’ve done my best to keep an eye out not for what’s different between me and everyone else, but for what’s the same.  It turns out I always lose in the game of comparing my insides to other people’s outsides, but in being myself – or being faced with others doing the same – I find that I’ve given and received more gifts than I could possibly pay back in return.

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Getting the Message

19 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by Laura Max Nelson in Balance, Employment, Journalism, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

France, God, Israel, Italy, journaling, meditation, Spain, spirituality, Traveling, Writing, Yoga

They say that when we pray, we talk to God, and when we meditate, we listen.  Given that, let me inform you all that I’ve recently been talking my ass off. It wasn’t until the other day that I had the presence of mind to put this ass of mine on a pillow and see if I might gently take my sock, and insert it into my mouth.  In a brief moment of meditation, I was divinely guided back to this blog.

It started as I explained to God that I was running late to class, and that he or she had just two minutes to give some sort of guidance (of course, God understands that stillness is relative during the school year.)  I spent about 30 seconds of those two minutes continuing to blab about my state: having found myself in a place of formerly unsurpassed abundance in life, I explained that I’ve recently had the same feeling I get when I haven’t gone to yoga in too many days, or haven’t seen dear friends in too long of a time. I felt stuck. It didn’t make any sense to me – I’ve been upside-down pretty regularly since returning from Europe this summer, and it seemed like moments alone and moments spent with those I love have been very well-balanced.  I’m also in my last semester of college, so my course load isn’t exactly taking a toll on my sanity when it includes photography and voice lessons. As I rudely rambled on during God’s alloted time on the stand, I heard my answer.

“What happened to your writing?”

If God is in fact the voice within, which is one belief of several that I subscribe to, then my voice within was screaming for a pen.

I habitually write almost every morning and evening, and throughout the day when I can.  Recently though, after a whirlwind of activity over the summer, writing had fallen off of my radar without my noticing. I’ve just returned from about 4 months of on-and-off traveling, starting my summer adventure in London, making my way through Europe to Spain, Italy, and France, pit stopping in Texas (had to take my big hair, which is currently not so big, back to its roots,) returning to London, and spending my last two weeks of summer in Israel.  After hurricane Irene left me stuck in the land of milk and honey right up until my moving date, I practically jumped right out of the Dead Sea and into a moving frenzy, haphazardly moving everything I own out of my old apartment and up three flights of stairs.  I have spent most of my time since then unpacking, unwinding, and contemplating the integration of my “eat, love, repeat” European spirit with the girl who’s got to get herself a real-life job in about three months.  Somewhere in the mix, my favorite creative outlet got lost in the pile of old winter clothes and dusty picture frames.  I’m happy to now be sipping on my third Pumpkin Spice Latte of fall as I resume writing in the blog that brings me back to life each time I write in it.

After four months off, it’s wonderful to come back to my WordPress dashboard and see that visitors are still frequenting this blog on a regular basis.  I hope to resume writing in it and turning my journey into something tangible as my last semester and first steps into the working world begin to unfold.

Trail Walking in Southern Spain

Paris in June

Waterbus in Venice

Bahama Mama!

Back in Boston

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