Feb13
Posted on Feb 13 by Ruth Davis
You’d think that, as heart-centered as I am, I’d love the idea of Valentine’s Day. But actually, it’s never been a favorite for me. Maybe because it’s so Hallmark-y. Maybe because, if you’re not in the throes of a passionate, romantic relationship, you feel somehow less than, like you’re missing out. Maybe it goes back to when I was in fifth grade and someone left a dead goldfish in my desk next to all of the other Valentine’s cards. On the surface, Valentine’s Day is all about hearts and flowers, chocolates and stuffed animals. But if we look deeper, the real heart of Valentine’s Day is about love. And so this year, I’m proclaiming this as a day to honor the love in our hearts, not just the loves in our lives. When we look inward, into our own hearts, love becomes an opportunity for self-awareness, self-care, self-inquiry. When we look into our hearts, we are inviting personal reflection. We begin to ask deeper questions, like, what is really important to us? What are we passionate about? What sparks...
Feb06
Posted on Feb 6 by Ruth Davis
A thick layer of fog fills the folds in the hills behind me, like blankets rolled up to keep out the draft. Morro Rock is gone from my view, though I know it is standing somewhere behind the stretch of gray that rises higher than the Los Osos hills. Across the creek, the fog settles over the buildings on Ocean Avenue like the puffy white clouds you see out of an airplane window and I can barely make out the shops and the cars parked on the street. Sounds are louder, while, at the same time, everything seems more still. I remember a time in my life when I felt like my whole world was engulfed in this kind of thick unseeing fog. It was unsettling, disorienting, anxiety producing. Because I was trying to move through it. I was desperately wanting to not to be in the uncomfortableness that I was feeling, the sense of being lost, the place of not knowing. But the more I tried to push through, the harder it was to see. Until I stopped...
Jan30
Posted on Jan 30 by Ruth Davis
Even the simplest life can offer up obstacles. Things break. Propane leaks. It is always our choice HOW we deal with these challenges. Marika and Mabel came for a ten day visit this month and one of the first things Marika said when she stepped into the RV was that she smelled propane. I was surprised since I’d only gotten a whiff every once in a while and chalked it up to my imagination. But she immediately took action. She made me get my nose up close to the stove burner where, indeed, I smelled it very strong. We turned off the propane at the tank and scheduled a repair. We called a mobile repair company so that we wouldn’t have to drive into Morro Bay and wait around. The convenience was worth the $95.00 trip charge. The company came, did a check around the stove but found no leak. They recommended we remove the solenoid, a device between the propane tank and the system that shuts down all propane flow if there’s a leak, since it didn’t function....
Jan16
Posted on Jan 16 by Ruth Davis
So often we hear people asking, What is my real purpose? What is my true work? Sometimes our most important work has nothing to do with a paycheck. Back in November, a client scheduled a four week Mac training series to begin in early January. She emailed me the day before our first session, saying that she was just so overwhelmed and felt terrible, but could we postpone until the following week. I could feel her anxiety and stress and so I wrote back: Breathe… And honor the fact that you are recognizing that adding one more thing to your life right now isn’t going to work. Breathe again. Let’s cancel tomorrow and hold off on next week too. I’m about to roll out a group training program that will address all of your needs. And breathe again. She wrote back that she was crying in gratitude, because I knew she just needed to breathe. Interactions like this remind me how much I love my work, especially when it has nothing to do with making money! Because often,...
Jan02
Posted on Jan 2 by Ruth Davis
“Broken hearted often leads to broken open. And broken open is the perfect environment for finding out who you are and why you’re here. Break and grow.”
- Michele Woodward The last time the moon was full, so was my heart. I had just met a new friend and the connection was electric. I hadn’t laughed so much or felt so alive in a really long time. And, as much as I tried to convince myself that it was just an exciting new friendship, my heart was beginning to tell me otherwise. And I thought hers was too. Turns out she was not being completely honest with me and, when I found out she was interested in dating someone else, well, I was too all-in to just be friends. And so I had to let it go. I felt betrayed. Taken advantage of. Even a little heart broken. I missed the hour-long phone conversations and the back and forth of daily emails. I missed laughing. I missed bouncing ideas off of each other and talking about painting and writing...
Dec19
Posted on Dec 19 by Ruth Davis
“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince We all have dreams. A picture perfect vision of what we want our life to look like. Maybe you envision a beautiful home and you have walked through the rooms a hundred times in your mind, running your hands across the furniture, choosing the colors of the walls, even imagining who is standing around in the kitchen, sharing a delicious meal with you. Maybe you have a vision of your ideal partner. You know what they look like, smell like, if they speak with an accent. You imagine how their skin feels and how you feel when you are with them. On one hand, it’s important to engage in these fantasies. They awaken the imagination which sparks an opening in our heart. The danger comes when we start looking for this exact manifestation of what we’ve envisioned and we close our heart to any other option. Our dreams are there to guide us in the direction...
