365 Inspirations—307: Sharing

With my friend Rosedanie inside Samarai Noodles

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”—Mother Teresa 
It's easy to get sucked into our own dramas. We all live in our own worlds with our own thoughts and concerns, but my how good it feels to open up and share with another.

Whether you share your home, a meal, good conversation, a coffee, a ride—whatever it is, it feels good to share.

Tonight I'm sharing time with my good friend Rosedanie. She just came back from a 10-day Vipassana meditation course and is staying with us for the night. We made up the bed in my office and it looks really cozy in there.

We took her out for noodles in the University District and caught up on each others lives.

It felt good to share worlds with another person. It really puts things into perspective.

Yoon found a Starbucks card on the ground that had been run over and rained on. Somehow it still had some juice left on it, so he bought me a coffee and a croissant. I know I shouldn't drink coffee at night, but it did give me energy to drive to a house on Capital Hill where my friend left her computer before her meditation course.

Now she doesn't need to backtrack and she can head on her way home tomorrow with ease.

If we would just open up and share a little, we actually would find that our load becomes a little easier.

I'm happy to be sharing this evening with a good friend.

Have you shared anything with anyone lately?

365 Inspirations—242: Face to Face Communication

Friends sharing an umbrella at beach in Seattle

"We maintain thousands more friends than any human being in history, but at the cost of complexity and depth. Every minute spent online is a minute of face-to-face time lost."—Daniel H. Wilson

Since Wednesday evening, we've had guests in our house. It's been wonderful. We've gotten a chance to spend face to face time with real live human beings. We've hugged, laughed, smiled, gone on walks, eaten, told stories, and spent quality time together. I think this is a rare thing these days.

Of course we have lots to do. We leave for a two-week trip to Peru the day after tomorrow and haven't thought too much about it, but I think we pretty much have all we need and are as ready as we'll ever be.

Being with friends has pulled me out of that 'list of things to do' mode and brought me into the present moment. It's made me realize that it's not the thinking of all the things you have to do that gets them done, it's being present in each moment for what is necessary that things are accomplished.

And sometimes it's good to surrender a little.

I surrendered to the time with my friends and it brought me so much joy.

Every time we are able to surrender to the moment at hand and just be with what is and even find joy in it, we open the door for more joy to enter our lives.

John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." I don't want to be busy making other plans, I want to be here for life.

I want to spend face to face time with people. When we share the time with others, we expand our world.

Face to face time with friends brings us out of our little world of habits, plans and patterns and makes us see the bigger picture. When you add the new dynamic of another person, suddenly you see things through a larger filter.

After all, we don't live in a vacuum. Our lives are meant to touch each other. I really believe this.

It's this sharing, loving and 'live' interaction with one another that really opens us up and makes us see things in a new way.

Have you spent quality face to face time with anyone lately. Have you spent time with any new or old friends who have added a wider perspective to your life?

365 Inspirations—129: Celebrating TEN YEARS

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”—Lao Tzu

Internet is spotty here, so these posts may be short! I had to type this post on my iPhone! Not easy!

Yoon and I ran away for our 10th year wedding anniversary...

Here are some photos that may give you an idea of where we are! Can you guess? Don't tell if you already know!

Are you married? Where did you spend your last anniversary?

365 Inspirations—67: Meeting My Writing Group

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."—Henry Ford

Today I went downtown to a friend's house for my monthly meeting with my writing group. I carpooled with another friend. The three of us have been writing together for several years now. They are also my co-workers at the college where I teach ESL. All three of us are ESL teachers.

Whenever we get together, I feel so much energy. We always meet at a member's house and we always prepare food and eat a meal together. Today's meeting place was in my friend and co-worker's beautiful apartment in downtown Seattle with an amazing sunset view of the city and Puget Sound from the living room and city views throughout the rest of the place.

The first thing we did when we arrived was take pictures from her floor to ceiling windows. After that, we had some appetizers and drinks and chatted a bit. Our friend with the downtown apartment prepared a delicious turkey loaf, sweet potato salad and asparagus. We brought salads to accompany the meal and I made little chocolate cakes for dessert.

We are all collaborating on a book. I can't go into details about the book yet, but when it's closer to completion, I'll write about it here. The book is something that spontaneously happened from our meetings and now there is great energy behind it. Whenever we get together, we review what we have written and collaborate more. It's been such a fun process. Here a picture of us collaborating with our laptops:

I'm so happy I met with them today and we have another date on the calendar for next month and some assignments and research to do before we meet again! It's been so fun to work on this project together.

Do you have any clubs or groups that you meet with regularly? How often do you meet?

365 Inspirations—42: Collaging with my Husband

This is my husband Yoon's collage

"The creation of an art collage from the soul is an inner journey that allows your soul to speak to you. Your soul's voice can be heard through the images, feelings and insights that surface..."—Kathleen Carrillo

Okay, I know. Collaging is probably not the norm for a "date night" with your significant other, but that's how my husband and I spent Saturday night and we were in bliss and completely content.

I got out all the art supplies, made a couple cups of Market Spice Tea, sliced up a Minneola (Have you had one? It's a cross between a tangerine and an orange—delish!), put on the smooth jazz station and got down to business!

Thankfully, my husband was happy and excited to join me in a night of collaging. Both of us LOVE talking about our dreams together and we love the creative process. I feel lucky to have a husband I can share my ideas and thoughts with. 

Collaging uses the right side of the brain. It's a completely free-flow kind of activity and easy to do. All you need are a bunch of magazines, some glue, colored paper, stickers, colored pencils, and any other art supplies. I learned from my best friend Lena, who is an art therapist, that drawing a circle with a plate on the paper is a way to focus the collaging project, but you can also just collage freely on the entire paper.

Both my husband and I chose to draw a circle with a plate. Then we got busy and quiet cutting out words and pictures that sparked our interests. I found a bunch of puffy stickers I must have bought a while ago with all kinds of travel images on them and used them in my collage.

After we finished, we spent time looking at each others collages. I realized that my husband and I are more alike in our interests than I thought. We both put images of travel, yoga, retreats and money (having money is helpful for doing the other things ^_^) on our collages.

The collage I created on Saturday night!

I have been doing collages for years and have led collage activities at yoga retreats with my husband. They are always one of the most inspiring activities we do at retreats.

I'm always amazed to find that things I've collaged about years ago have actually come true in my life. Through collaging, I often feel like I've found a portal into the unconsciousness. I see things in my collages that are reflections of things that have happened and things that are yet to be. They are all like "vision boards" for me. Doing them is so freeing.

When we are children, we actively and freeing participate in the creative process through art and play. I think this is very important for adults too!

Do you like to do art? Have you ever done collaging before? 

365 Inspirations—Six: Engaging Conversations with Wonderful Friends

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."—Charles Dickens

 In a world of online communication, it is so nice to actually have an engaging face-to-face conversation with good friends. I think as a society we are moving toward this more. I can only hope this is the case.

I love all the friends I have met on the net and am so grateful for the fact that this worldwide network has made it possible for us to meet, even though you are in __________ (India, China, Australia, Korea, England...where are you from? Leave me a comment) and I'm in Seattle. I consider this blog to be one of my communities and it would be so thrilling to meet you in person someday. I had the great pleasure of meeting many bloggers/friends while on book tour. There's nothing that compares to finally meeting someone in person after years of communicating online. It's like meeting a long lost friend, yet you've never actually met in person.

On December 31, 2012, just before the ball dropped, the fireworks went off, people clinked glasses, locked arms or kissed, I was on the sofa next to my husband staring into the fire in the fireplace drinking apple cider and completely content. I checked Facebook and realized that people all over the world were wishing each other a Happy New Year 2013!

At 11:56pm, a friend sent me a message. She said, "Happy almost New year! Are you and Yoon available this upcoming Friday for dinner? I will be in town and it would be so fun to see you both!" This is a friend I knew from high school, but never really talked to in high school. She somehow discovered my blog and read my book and since then we have been in contact with each other.

She came over at around 6:30pm and we had a cup of tea and chatted a bit on the sofa and then we went to the yoga studio to pick up Yoon at Yoon's Yoga Bliss. Yoon showed her around the studio and  then we all carpooled over to a Thai Restaurant up the street. After a tasty meal, we went back to our house, made a fire and had delicious little cakes and tarts with herbal tea.

But it wasn't so much what we did that left an impression on me. It was the time we spent together and the conversations we had. In our fast pace world, this is so rare. There's no time to meet others. There's no time to linger with friends.

We are all in a hurry to do and get to the next thing! Why are we running so fast?

I hope this year I spend more time meeting and lingering with friends, walking, writing letters (real, handwritten letters), witnessing my surroundings and slowing down. Even though I'll be writing this blog for 365 days this year, I hope that my feet can still feel the earth and my ears can still hear the sound of a friend's voice and I can really listen.

Engaging conversations with friends is so important to me because inspiration feeds off of inspiration. We all bring something to the table and when we meet in person it makes it that much stronger!

(Above is a picture of me and two high school friends at one of my book readings last spring. I hadn't seen them since high school and it was so nice to reconnect face-to-face!)