I am honoured to be one of Jamie Ridler’s first interview subjects in her podcast series Creative Living with Jamie! Jamie is an amazing self-development coach and artist. She offers weekly Wishcasting, monthly Full Moon Dreamboards, a book club, in-person workshops, and electronic resources.
We had a great time talking about finding harmony between the act of creating and the administrative aspects of getting your creations out into the world (a challenge I face in my work as a writer/producer). I also of course discussed how being softer generates space and energy for creativity .
You can listen at her site, or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or other software.
To fans of Jamie who found me through her site, welcome to Be Softer!
Here’s a way to spend 15 seconds and no money to:
All with just the click of the mouse! Just visit The Hunger Site once a day and click once for Hunger, Breast Cancer, Literacy, Child Health, Rainforest and Animal Rescue. For each click on the site, sponsors donate money for the charity partners.
How does it add up? In 2008, the site donated:
If you want to do more, you can buy a variety of products on the site, a portion of which go to further support the causes. For more information about where the money goes, see the “about this site” on each of the pages.
If you set the page as your home page on your browser, you’ll be sure to remember, and you’ll know that no matter what else happens that day, you’ll have made a small difference that adds up.
Today I’m urging you to take a break from reading or watching the news.
Yes, as citizens of the world, we want to be informed, but I’ve noticed that the main headlines as reported by newspapers, television or online is basically a roll call of who died or was attacked in some way, and how. The more intense the violence involved, the more likely we are to hear about it. (The old “if it bleeds, it leads” adage.)
Is this what you want to fill your eyes and mind with, as one of the first acts of your day?
Or if it’s political headlines or blogs you prefer, think about whether reading them is mainly a way to get an adrenaline rush, to see what the “Other Side” has done now, and commiserate with others in outrage.
So what do I suggest instead, to reduce rather than raise your blood pressure? Taking a walk outside. Cloud gazing. Reading a book. Finger painting. Daydreaming. Cuddling a pet or human. Reading positive blogs. Playing with a yoyo.
I realize that news reporting can at times be helpful to galvanize people to take action. If you’re worried that you’ll miss something important that you should respond to, you could set up an automatic payment to the Red Cross and/or your favourite political group to cover whatever the crisis of the moment is.
Give it a try, for a morning, a day, the whole weekend — and let us know how it works out.
If you’d like to receive the weekly “Try This” every Friday by email, sign up for the newsletter.
The very cool green-friendly home design site Re-nest has gathered suggestions on how to use old cassette tapes in home decor.
Designs include mirrors, lamps and a coin purse!
Then they pointed me to Interbent to figure out what to do with these pesky CDs and CD-Roms…
I stole this idea from my friend Zadie: a structure-free day. Pick one day a week where you have no agenda, no plans, no to-do list. Just do whatever you feel like doing. Could be going for a long bike ride or calling friends or (my personal favourite) lying on the couch with a book. If you truly feel like painting the porch, you can do it, but not because you feel like you have to, or because you said that’s what you would do this weekend.
It’s a refreshing feeling!
What happens when ask yourself “What do I really feel like doing right now?” instead of “What should I be doing right now?”
This sounds like a very cool project!
Inspire Me Today is going on a global hug tour. The founder of IMT and her husband will be flying around the world in a small prop plane, to over 100 locations on a tour to “gather inspiration, deliver 100,000+ hugs and share more than $1,000,000 with important causes…”
If you want to get a hug, you can see where they’re stopping see where they’re stopping. They’re also looking for team leaders in each city they visit.
For $10 you can sponsor a hug for one of the causes they are supporting:
- Chennai, India, to support the efforts of Dr. Mani’s Children’s Heart Foundation where just 100 hugs – or $1000 – will save the life of a child;
- a preserve in Chiang Mai, Thailand to help rebuild the threatened elephant population;
- Siem Reap, Cambodia where a mere 2 hugs will fund a years education for a child.
Wishing them luck with the project!
I’m attending the Toronto International Film Festival this week, so thought the time was right to bring out a list of films that are (as far as I can tell), just straight-out fun, no deep thinking required. Because sometimes you just need to lie back into a soft sofa, put your feet up, and laugh your ass off.
(69, dude!)
(original with Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel – Never put your own money in the show!)
(I know you are but what am I?)
If you’re not sure you can do this if it’s not on a to-do list, you can check off your way through AFI’s “100 Years, 100 Laughs.”
As you can see, my list (and sense of humor I guess!) is biased to pre-1990. What would make your fave five list?
For this weekend’s Try This, I offer a can’t-fail fun-maker: the yoyo.
I hadn’t played with one for quite some time, but picked one up at a store a while ago and just the feel of it in my hand made me smile immediately. I’m convinced flinging an object around on a string can’t help but “take years off your age.” Just watch out for bonking yourself (or others) in the head. Not saying that happened to me or anything…
If you actually need a rational reason to pick up a yoyo, it turns out that playing with a yoyo is great mental exercise because it uses both the left and right sides of your brain! Who knew?
If you don’t have one in the back of your closet or kitchen drawer, just going to pick one up could provide a spirit of adventure. Linger in the toy store! Try out all kinds of stuff! They’ve got all kinds of fancy models that light up and return to you automatically, but the old tried and true classic yoyo will do more than fine!
Once yoyo is safely in hand and you’ve had some time to play on your own, you can learn to do some tricks if you want. I found a site for beginner yoyo tricks, and one for more advanced.
Here’s the winner of the 2005 YoYo championships, for inspiration:
Give it a spin! Have a fun weekend!
Today marks the start of Twestival Local. Twitter users and their friends will use the next 4 days to hold fundraising events, raise awareness of local charities and do small community projects. If you’ve never gotten the point of Twitter, this is a great chance to see how it can be used as a force for good!
And you can participate even if you’re not a Twitter user! (people who post updates on their lives, or links of interest to others, but only 140 characters at a time)
Things you can do:
This is only the first year of the project, so I’m impressed at how much is happening this year, and can’t wait to see it grow as the years go on!
