Tag: exercise

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Bearers of Joy

I bet if you’re on Instagram you, like I, get those ads for various workout programs. I’ve been interested in the seated workouts that advertise unbelievable results “for senior women” in 28 days. Well, interested, but not really believing. I searched on YouTube for a free version and discovered a gal whose workout videos are called Fabulous50s. Why not give it a try, I thought? After all, 72 is the new 52, isn’t it? Say yes, quickly, or some old gal falls and breaks a hip!

This beautiful soul, Schellea (Shelly) has 1.77 million subscribers and I, who had never previously subscribed to any YouTube channel, am one of them. She has such incandescent energy! She says, “I am 57 years old, live in Australia and it is my greatest joy to help women over 50 feel great about who they are, and help them to feel excited about where they are going!” Amen! Watching the videos, one does feel her joy and her intention. She is lovely.

Shelly is a meditation and yoga guru, spiritual guide, life coach, and then an exercise instructor, in my view. She says things throughout like, “You are beautiful!” “Smile!” “Say out loud three things that you like about yourself.” “Think of three things you are grateful for.” I find myself smiling and feeling happy during and definitely after these short workouts. The stretching videos are accompanied by beautiful classical music or vocal music that is both uplifting and calming. The last screen is of the ocean, with the words YOU ARE LOVED super-imposed. Oh yes, I do feel loved! Thank you!

How many ways are there to bring joy to others? So many. I never would have imagined that exercise videos would be one of those ways! I suppose it all comes down to how you do what you do, what kind of energy you bring to the role, work, or play, and how fully you bring your positive intentions out onto the page, the screen, the pickleball court . . . Each of us has ways we impact others. We can have a neutral impact, a negative one, or a gorgeously positive one.

I love discovering new bearers of joy. I want to be one, as well. I hope that these letters bring some small measure of joy to you. Or a great big heap of it.

“Be the light or the one who carries it.” ― Germany Kent

“I love the smell, the lovely aroma of indulgent lushness, of people with inner peace.” ― Bhuwan Thapaliya

“Be the sun in someone’s dark sky.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Creative Block

“I don’t know how to paint,” I recently told both my son and a good friend. The friend responded, “No painter ever in the history of art has ever thought that, right?” That’s right. Not Van Gogh or any of those others. No one.

So I’ve been struggling with three paintings I’m been working on. Each new thing I try seems to go badly. Or I’ll be happy with one and a few hours later, I think it’s absolutely terrible. A dog’s breakfast, I’d say if I was British. Rubbish. Deserves to be thrown into the bin. Or tossed on the fire. I don’t even have a fire. What then?

And then there are other things. The heat and other things. It’s been a general miasma over here the last little while.

As a result, I’ve been pulling out the old standbys I use to lift my mood. Went to the gym, finally. On the track, I listened to a Gratitude Walk, which turned out to be more like Interval Training with just a hint of gratitude. Kicked my butt but I liked it. Slipped back into the funk after a couple of hours, though. Later concluded I do not know how to paint. Went to the gym the following day, with music on the iPod. Nice but then I required an Epsom salts bath, a nap, and chocolate. Gave my paintings the stink eye.

This is the painting my son wants for Christmas.

Today, however, we had a lovely, breezy, cool morning. I took Miles to Stephens Park and we walked around the lake, which was absolutely lovely. And then I went back out on my own, through the neighborhood, with Ceasar Happily aka Ceasar F. Barajas, a meditation/yoga teacher, narrating “Walk and Chill” on my phone. Oh my Lord! Lovely. Wonderful voice, amazing energy, beautifully encouraging words. And then it started raining. I love being out in the rain and so this was an added bonus. And then Ceasar says, “Now imagine the miracle that is currently happening. You are a walking universe, filled with energetic channels of light and love and electricity, currently walking on an earth that is in the midst of an even bigger universe.” Whoa. And more where that came from.

Okay, you tell me how a person can remain in a funk while hearing those and many other words during a walk in the rain at the end of a very hot week during which that person mistakenly concluded that she does not know how to paint. At all. Pish-posh. I am a walking universe! And I think painting is included in my universe. Funk lifted.

And then my son calls and says he wants for Christmas TWO of my recent paintings. This makes me very, very happy.

“When I have a creative block, I take walks. I like to see what shapes stick out – so many legs rushing by at once, it can seem abstract. I don’t need to see great art to get stirred up. Music does that for me more easily.” — Caio Fonseca

“If you hear a voice within you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced.” — Vincent van Gogh

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”