File this one under "well then what is even the point?": with all the efforts to reduce screen time, and even turn overhead lights down in the evenings, it's now been shown that even dim candlelight before bed can disrupt sleep. SIGH.
Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.
This week in church we talked about curiosity vs. condemnation.
When we disagree with someone, do we approach them with curiosity, or do we just condemn them?
One is open and a little more human than the other. One creates a softer space where a hard conversation can happen.
Curiosity takes the focus off of you and your rightness and puts it on the other person and their story. What brought them to this place? What does their stance, whatever it is, really mean to them?
I am going to suggest, however, that there is more to healthy disagreement than simple curiosity. Curiosity is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't put up many boundaries, and sometimes boundaries are necessary.
At some point, I would suggest that disengagement is another option. The disengagement doesn't have to come from condemnation, it can say, "I understand how you see things and what brought you to this place, but the place where I am accepted and safe is somewhere different." Or more simply, it can say, "I love you, and I have to leave." And the leaving can be a step away from the conversation, the topic, or the relationship as a whole.
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My dear friend Alison said this, and I think it needs to be shared far and wide:
"You're still awesome, you just feel like crap."
Okay, she actually used a different word than "crap", but I am making it family-friendly.
In fact, I have added this saying to the roster of randomly-appearing encouragements that pop up on my phone, but with one small edit: mine says, "you're still awesome, even when you feel like crap."
It's not quite as punchy, but I don't want to assume that I'm always going to be feeling like crap, all the time.
So if you feel like crap, remember that you are still, most certainly, awesome. You just don't feel it right now.
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This Week's "I want to go to there": This seems like a good place to imagine things, doesn't it? Photo by Pawel Czerwinski.
The Impulse to Share
A new art installation looks nonjudgmentally at our impulse to share images, and how the technology may have changed but the human desire to be seen has been around forever. Blending old postcards and new snapchats, as well as hundreds of tourist photos of the Golden Gate Bridge taken at the exact same angle, the exhibit snap + share at the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art looks super interesting.
Fragmento Universo
Tessa Doniga's food photography is hilarious and so much fun.
"Remove your headphones and devote a minute or two to listening to a fellow human being who, like you, is simply trying to make it through this life in a manner that is personally enjoyable and does as little harm as possible."
Oooooh boy. In general, I could use every reminder out there that we are all just doing our best to get through life.
Wild Animals
Ellen Jewett's sculptures are these wild blends of plant and animal, and I could stare at them for quite some time.
“The thing that comes most easily to you is probably also your superpower. For the longest time I thought my strengths — like making conversation — were nothing special because they felt effortless to me. But over time, I’ve learned that your power lies in your true nature. It is inherently yours, and you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to use it. Own it.” — Uli Beutter Cohen
I continually need to remind myself that I should do the things that come easily to me, if for no other reason that they don't come easily to others. For example, I am perfectly comfortable public speaking, while others would rather die than step in front of a crowd. That probably means I should volunteer to be the one speaking more often.
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When I think about the saying "be the change you want to see in the world", which was, apparently, falsely attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, I usually think about general, global sentiments, like creating a world with less hatred.
After watching this School of Life video, I think I have been missing a big part of what it can mean to be the change I want to see.
Being the change you want to see in the world isn't (or at least, doesn't have to be) just about vague, sweeping notions of what kind of world we want to live in. It can be about very specific people and issues and being the change we want to see within one relationship.
This seems especially relevant when it comes to relationships with siblings, parents, and partners. The people with whom we spend decades developing a dynamic. Where we are really entrenched in "how things are" between us.
It can feel dangerous to be the change in these situations. We might know that the first instance of kindness or generosity will be seen as opportunity on the other side, that we will be taken advantage of instead of met on this new level of interaction.
(That probably means that we need to remember that boundaries can still exist in relationships full of kindness and generosity.)
It can also be manipulative, like, "I am going to be nice to make them be nice," or, "I am going to prove that they are incapable of empathy by bringing so freaking much empathy to the table it crushes them."
(It's possible that is not quite what it means to be the change.)
They don't say this in the video, but I think the ultimate reason to be the change we want to see in a relationship is simply that life will be more pleasant for us if we do. Life is better when we approach it with empathy, kindness, and generosity. It's not easier - those things take effort - but it seems more pleasant, on the whole.
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In looking up the lyrics to post for this song, I have learned that Thom Yorke describes this song as being about a drunk guy who can't get up the nerve to talk to a beautiful lady, and so follows her around. So... yeah. Turns out that Creep puts the creep in creepy. Also, Yorke was all, "it's hard to be a sensitive dude and still be seen as sexy," which might have some legitimacy to it but also sounds dangerously close to complaining about being friendzoned all the time. I smack my forehead. (But will still sing along with the song.) (Source)
The moon is still largely a mystery to us, with astronomers only mostly agreeing on how it likely formed. (Are there enough qualifying statements there?) It also might have seismic activity caused by changing temperatures and stress from being close to the earth's gravitational pull.
Welcome to the series wherein I share my take-aways from church. The things that, I think, are beneficial to all of us to know or think about, whether or not we believe in any church-related things.
This week in church we talked about trees.
Okay, so technically this was a little section for the kids, but the leader asked the kids to think about how trees, flowers, and other things in nature worship. The answer? Grow, bloom, and basically just being alive and doing their thing.
I love that idea of worship for us, too. Just living, growing, learning, and being is an act of worship.
This week in church we talked about the liturgy of life.
Liturgy, if you aren't a church person, is when the congregation reads some text all together, often as a call and response. Some change week to week, but many are repeated every single week and become something of an ingrained ritual.
So the liturgy of life are the things we do in our daily lives, over and over again, that we are centering ourselves around, intentionally or not.
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Everyone, if you haven't heard, Keanu Reeves is our new prophet. When asked what he thinks happens when we die, and he said, ""I know that the ones who love us will miss us."
Just... the most perfect answer.
Lucky
The 15 habits of lucky people.
15 habits of lucky people:
1 work harder
2 complain less
3 teach others
4 show gratitude
5 share credit
6 choose kindness
7 volunteer first
8 unselfishly give
9 trust first
10 good manners
11 stay teachable
12 promote others
13 love to explore
14 storytellers
15 love to compete
“When you have people over for dinner, don’t try to impress anyone. Give them simple, delicious food made well — meatballs, barbecued chicken and potato salad, macaroni and cheese. No one is grading you. They’re just happy that you’re cooking for them.”
— Jenny Rosenstrach
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My first thought, honestly, is to just ignore your phone and don't worry about it. Anyone who gets angry that you don't reply to a text immediately doesn't understand how life works. Texting is asynchronous communication. Sometimes people see and reply instantly, sometimes they don't, sometimes they are interrupted, mid-text conversation with something that is happening right in front of them, only to remember they were talking to you a day later. It is what it is!
But I guess it's hard to have such a laissez-faire attitude when you've heard a ping from your phone and just know there is someone on the other side waiting on you and you don't know who it is or what they need and also we are all addicted to the serotonin hit from getting notifications in the first place, so we instinctively want to feed the machine.
It's actually the perfect example of meeting yourself where you're at. Sure, maybe if we were all "better people" we could just follow my first, slightly-judgemental, instinct and simply not look at our phones. But if that's not working, then we have a choice: get angry with ourselves and double down on the thing that isn't working, or find another way.
This is another way.
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I recently came across a new (to me) way to frame grief that has really helped me, and so I wanted to share it with you guys!
I have always thought of grief as some amorphous process of feeling and working through your pain until... it was done, I guess. Like the pain is this big marshy land and you have to wade through it and sometimes you get sucked under while at other times it's just hard to move, and then at some point it decides, "Okay, you've felt enough, now you can move on", and a boardwalk suddenly appears in front of you.
Then the other day I went to see my counsellor about a significant breakup I have been working through, and she gave me a different way to look at it.
She discussed grief as the process of our brains bouncing back and forth between the new reality we are living in and our old reality - the one that our brain is not only more familiar with, but that it prefers because it's not so dang painful.
There is a lot of dissonance in the bouncing back and forth as our brains try to find ways to get the old reality back or pretend it's still there. It's that disconnect between the reality we are actually living in and the one our brains want to recreate that causes a lot of those terrible feelings.
Perhaps I'm just grasping for control, but this idea of my brain adjusting to the new reality feels significantly better to me than wading through a marsh of terrible feelings, hoping that one day the marsh decides I have suffered enough.
One, because it's a framework I understand, and so when the waves of grief hit me, I know that my brain is just reaching for the old reality. Two, because it gives me something to do in the healing process: I can gently remind myself that of my new reality and help move the needle towards full acceptance.
Also, if I am looking for something to control, that seems okay. Part of the horribleness of losing a relationship, however it goes away, is that sense that you had no choice in the matter. I'll take some choices now, thanks!
(PS: One of the things that has really helped me in the process of going through this grief is having this blog to return to and write for, so thank you for being a part of that!)
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You know how you treat your cat like a queen and give her a mug of her very own to drink out of because she prefers drinking out of people cups than bowls on the floor and she STILL drinks out of your cup? Yeah.
I remember dancing to this at school dances, which is kind of weird, if you think about it. A bunch of teenagers dancing and singing along to a song mourning the death of the singer's friend. But then, we also danced to Janet Jackson's Together Again.
I'LL BE MISSING YOU
by Puff Daddy f. Faith Evans
Every day I wake up, I hope I'm dreamin'
I can't believe this shit
Can't believe you ain't here
Sometimes it's just hard for a nigga to wake up
It's just hard to just keep goin'
It's like I feel empty inside without you bein' here
I would do anything man, to bring you back
I'd give all this shit, shit don't mean nothing
I saw your son today, he look just like you
You was the greatest, you'll always be the greatest
I miss you B.I.G
Can't wait 'til that day, when I see your face again
I can't wait 'til that day, when I see your face again
Yeah, this right here (Tell me why)
Goes out to everyone that has lost someone
That they truly loved (C'mon, check it out)
Seems like yesterday we used to rock the show
I laced the track, you locked the flow
So far from hangin' on the block for dough
Notorious, they got to know that
Life ain't always what it seem to be
Words can't express what you mean to me
Even though you're gone, we still a team
Through your family, I'll fulfill your dream (That's right)
In the future, can't wait to see
If you open up the gates for me
Reminisce some time, the night they took my friend
Try to black it out, but it plays again
When it's real, feelings hard to conceal
Can't imagine all the pain I feel
Give anythin' to hear half your breath (Half your breath)
I know you still livin' your life after death
Every step I take, every move I make
Every single day, every time I pray
I'll be missin' you
Thinkin' of the day when you went away
What a life to take, what a bond to break
I'll be missin' you
(I miss you B.I.G.)
It's kinda hard with you not around
Know you in heaven, smilin' down
Watchin' us while we pray for you
Every day we pray for you
'Til the day we meet again
In my heart is where I'll keep you, friend
Memories give me the strength I need to proceed
Strength I need to believe
My thoughts Big I just can't define (Can't define)
Wish I could turn back the hands of time
Us in the six, shop for new clothes and kicks
You and me takin' flicks
Makin' hits, stages they receive you on
Still can't believe you're gone (Can't believe you're gone)
Give anything to hear half your breath (Half your breath)
A mother undergoing severe stress while pregnant (like intimate partner violence) has been shown and thought to lead to psychiatric problems in the baby, thanks to epigenetics. However, new research is showing that it is actually more adaptive for the child should they be in a threatening environment (like living in a dangerous neighbourhood). So the prenatal stress leads to postnatal resilience.
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I love playing Would You Rather. I essentially did all my adult "growing up" in an office with a best friend who is genius at coming up with them, and so those formative years of 23-34 were spent gleefully answering impossible questions.
More recently, this friend started pointing out at the end of a round of questions that in life you don't actually have to choose between one or the other. Setting aside the fact that most would you rather questions are completely impossible (seeing 10 mins into the future or 10 mins into the past), we are almost never walking around in life making binary choices that completely rule out the other possibilities.
I was thinking about this recently when I was listening to someone rant about how they could never, ever use an ereader, because they love physical books too much. They couldn't give up the smell of a new book.
Or another time listening to someone else talk about how they could never use dating apps because they like to meet people in real life.
Now, here's the thing: you don't have to buy an ereader or use the dating apps if you don't want to, but neither preclude you from taking part in their "real world" alternatives. You can own an ereader and still buy physical books from time to time. You can swipe for dates and still talk to strangers in bars.
The only thing that stops you from doing one or the other is your choice to abstain.
How many choices in life do we treat as one or the other, when really we could do both?
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Her basic thesis: a simple, sincere apology followed by real action to make amends seems to be impossible for the high-profile men accused of everything from harassment to assault. Instead, we get PR-style "apologies" (sometimes accompanied by cinnamon bun recipes) and/or deflection.
Some people seem to think there is no way for a man to satisfy the angry mob of pitchfork-wielding feminists once he is accused of something, but I think Valenti has a point: there doesn't seem to have been any effort for the most basic steps in seeking forgiveness.
Of course, you have to accept that you have done something wrong to genuinely seek forgiveness.
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This Week's "I want to go to there": Send me somewhere things aren't quite real. Photo by Carlos Bryan.
Time Ball
This collection of physical artifacts used to track data is pretty incredible. From a ball of string with knots that refer to major life events to a stick map, it shows the major value of physical artifacts.
Creepy Houses
You know how you don't realize something is essential until it's missing? That is definitely the case for this photography project by Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz that features windowless houses. Suddenly, there is something very, very wrong.
Often, when we spring clean, we imagine some idealized version of ourselves: one that is always tidy, that has perfect decor and all the "right" belongings. Because of this, we can hold onto things we never actually need or use -- they reflect some future self we want to become or a past self we can't quite let go of. So here is a more spiritual take on spring cleaning: the best way to spring clean is to make peace with who we are.
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