“It’s not enough for me to just hear about something or read about something, I wanna know it in my bones.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Super Soul Sunday

This quote really resonates with me. I can’t tell you how many times a day I Google something I hear or read about in order to know more. I want to know more about everything that I can because I truly want to “know it in my bones”. Elizabeth Gilbert never ceases to speak to me in such a beautiful way.

I’ve been saying since Oprah started “Super Soul Sunday” on the OWN Network that EVERYONE should tune in! Even if you can’t tune in every Sunday morning, you should DVR it like I do. I try as hard as I can to do it every Sunday but my schedule doesn’t always allow this. But when I do, I’m at CHURCH…it’s my time of worship. Elizabeth Gilbert (ironically who was also on one of the episodes I watched today and also the author of today’s quote) says that we should have our own rituals and ceremonies, no matter how big or small. Well “Super Soul Sunday” watching time is just that for me.

My “Super Soul Sunday” Ritual:

– Usually always a Sunday morning

– Hot cup of coffee or tea

– Sitting in my same big, comfy, brown chair

– A notebook and pen set on my lap pillow desk ready to go

I don’t just watch my Sunday SSS service, I am actively involved. I pause when I hear something that strikes me and awakens my mind and/or my soul, rewind to the beginning of what was said, and make sure that I transcribe it word for word how Oprah or her guest said it. Then I take a moment with it, let it sink in, relate it to my own life, and then press play again. I talk aloud during the service a lot. It doesn’t matter that they can’t hear me or respond because I already know that they relate to me as do the thousands of other viewers. It just helps me to vocalize my A-Ha moments, it makes them more impactful for me. There isn’t a time constraint on how long it takes me to get through an episode, I’m not on a clock. Sometimes a one hour episode can take me two hours to get through because I pause, write and reflect so much.

SSS is so enlightening for me and always puts my mind and soul at peace. I have been very stressed lately and very anxious and this mornings 3 episodes were just what I needed. It was an extra big surprise that two of the episodes I had saved were Elizabeth Gilbert, author of my favorite book “Eat, Pray, Love”. The other was Ali MacGraw. I filled 5 pages in my Oprah Lifeclass journal this morning with what I took in from their conversation. For those of you that missed it 😉 I have shared some of what I learned this morning and some of the questions it left me with to answer below:

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin

 “What am I here to do with my life?” – EG

“Sometimes you have to shape the quest to the reality of your life.” – EG

“There are 3 kinds of women in this world. There are women that are born to be mothers, there are women that are born to be aunties and there are women that shouldn’t be allowed to be within 10ft of a child…You have to figure out which category you should be in and obey that longing. Being a mother is hard enough of a job when you love it.” – EG

“Marriage isn’t just a wedding, it’s all the stuff that comes after it.” – EG

“Turn suffering into grade or it’s just wasted pain.” – EG

When hard things happen in your life ask yourself, “What is this here to teach me? What did I do to make this happen? What was my part in this?”

No matter what I’m gonna be alright.

“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live a perfect imitation of somebody’s else’s life.” – Bhagavad Gita

There is no happiness without self accountability.

The only weakness to be had is waiting for someone to change your life for you.

“I’m in charge of this soul that was given to me to take care of and I accept 100% accountability for this soul!” – EG

I HIGHLY recommend joining my “service”. My whole life I have had others asking me to follow their religion, give it a shot and to attend their services, and I have. I’m very open-minded and non-judgmental and respect any and all religions and spiritual views. We all have the right to believe whatever we wish and our hearts truly believe in this life. I’ve kept a lot of my views about spirituality, “God” and religion to myself for so long out of fear of judgement and others not understanding my views. I guess this is my turn to ask the same in return that’s been asked of me. Give it a shot! By no means am I asking you to change your religion, that’s silly and I don’t believe in that 😉 Maybe I’m just trying to give many of those in my life a glimpse of how my mind works, what I believe and  how I view my world and spiritual journey. Each episode truly awakes my spiritual being and sheds so much light on this life I was given, shaping my view of the unknown in this world!

Today marks the 3rd Anniversary of “A Day in My Quote Book”. It’s sort of crazy to think that I started this three years ago. I can’t say that I’ve been as consistently committed to it as I had hoped I would be but, then again, I’m not sure I had a goal for this blog at all. I just knew I wanted to write and I wanted to share that writing with others in hopes that people could find solace and comfort in the shared feelings and ideas of others. That being said, just ONE comment on a post would have been enough. I’m ecstatic to report that in 3 years I have had 265 blog entries, viewed  a total of 38,581 times by people from 155 countries, all the way from Burkina Faso to Mozambique to Serbia to Qatar to China to Cyprus. I’m not sure I can even put into words how awesome it feels to know that I have “connected” with that many people from all over this world! Sure, website statistics for other pages trump this by billions even trillions, but I don’t care. I set out to connect with one other person across this vast planet we live on and it’s beyond humbling.

Now that I’ve gotten that our of my system I suppose I need to share a quote. The pressure of this today has been a lot. I felt like I needed to bring my A game. But that’s not how I write. I have to be inspired by recent life events, I don’t pick quotes at random. So after a long day that ended a long week, I had to dig deep to find a quote that did my soul justice…

 

“After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.” – Italian Proverb

I was going to pick a quote that expressed my emotional state lately, but that was too deep for tonight. I was going to pick a quote that touched on love or that was about friendship, but for some reason this quote jumped out at me on SO many levels.

I could sit here and type out how it relates to my Leadership Program in my Grad School class and how I think it speaks to my personal leadership theory; I could sit here and type about how I think that our class system in this country is disproportionate; I could sit here and type about equality ; I could sit here and type about power struggles and fear and bullying…but I think I will let you do that on your own based on those prompts. What does it mean to you? How does it make you feel? How will you view the world tomorrow differently based on the answer to both of those questions?

Such a short and simple proverb with such a DEEP meaning! It sort of makes you wanna check your ego at the door, huh? 😉

For those of you that have followed me since the beginning, THANK YOU! For any of you that have given just one post of mine a chance, it means the world. I write for me but I hope that something that I have said has helped you at some point over the last 3 years and I continue to keep on writing. I’m not sure how often I just know that I won’t stop, and that’s the only rule I’m allowing myself to follow on this journey through my Quote Book.