The Trump Effect

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anxiety, being present, chaos, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, Donald Trump, Fear, future, growing up, human behaviour, human nature, humanity, illusion of control, impatient, integrity, life, Life's like that, living in the moment, panic, peace, politics, Truth

You lose your grip and then you slip into the masterpiece.

~ Leonard Cohen

I’d like to tell you that I’m even-tempered. That I keep a cool head when my patience or my sense of right and wrong are being tested. That the minute I feel my jaw clench in anger, I am able to say some kind of catch phrase like Breathe or Let It Go and I’m magically transported to the present where the stuff I’m losing my cool about hasn’t happened yet and may never ever happen at all. But I’d be lying.

Truth is, this is something I’m always trying to grow into and although I’m getting better at it, I may never master it. But that’s ok as long as I’m trying, right?

What seems funny to me is that when I’m in the midst of ‘losing it,’ I feel perfectly justified. Yet when I see someone else behave in a similar manner, My mouth forms the word WOW and I think to myself, ‘What a wacko.’

The Donald and how some of us react to him is a good example of this. “Oh those bad Canadians, they’re really screwing us over in the milk industry and softwood lumber industry by doing this and that and the bad Mexicans, something to do with chickens blah, blah, blah…and so I’m going to renegotiate to get us a better deal or just pull out of NAFTA all together.”

And then chaos ensues and people are running around to research if what he is saying is really true and if he can actually do what he says he going to do and the news is consumed with the silliest debates, things we all thought we were clear on like is the sky really blue and we wonder well is it and then we think, hey wait a minute… Ugh I GOT CAUGHT UP IN THIS AGAIN!

I’m seriously starting to wonder if he is a genius in the sense that he can so easily get us so wound up and I bet he’s having a nap, or reading the paper or doing laps in a pool, or worse working on something he doesn’t want the public to know about, while we are reacting to a non issue!

Well as it turns out, he can’t just pull out of NAFTA. The worst he can do is sign an executive order that indicates he would like to pull out in six months and then it would go through this huge process and many others would have to want to do the same – bottom line – it’s a process that goes way beyond Donald’s mere wishes…

Anyway, my point really has nothing to do with NAFTA or Donald Trump or politics or how we should navigate these issues. It merely serves as a globally recognizable example of something I struggle with daily – to not immediately react to a situation, to not get pulled into someone else’s chaos, to just breathe, stay in the present and respond in a caring and appropriate way.

` DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

What’s the thing you struggle with? Can you think of a good Trump illustration for it? 😉

The Little House Sparrow

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courage, Diana Schwenk, dreams, Fear, God, kindness, living in the moment, love, My Creator, Purpose, trust, vulnerability

This morning, just before I awoke, I dreamt of a little House Sparrow.

She appears suddenly from behind the curtain in my living room. As I wonder how I might best get her back outside, she flies toward me and lands on my hand which is casually propped up by my elbow on the armrest of my chair.

Amazed and delighted by her courage, I chance a quick look at her, not wanting to scare her. Her little heart is pounding; she does not look at me. In an instant I know that she knows her only way out of this dilemma is me. I could be her savior or I could be the end of her. She has concluded, however, that at least she has a chance of getting back out if she just gathers up her courage and trusts me.

“Open the window,” I say.

And then I woke up.

It occurs to me now, as I reflect on this dream, how often I have found myself in a situation where I have had to let go of my fear and trust the one, who could both save me and destroy me, to get me out of my dilemma.

Wishing you all a happy Sunday filled with trust and gratitude!  ❤

Diana xo

The Dance

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200 words, believe, compassion, courage, danger, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, enabling, Fear, growing up, happy, health, integrity, joy, kindness, living in the moment, love, mission, Purpose, sacrifice, world issues

How can we know the danger from the dance?

~ William Butler Yeats

How do you recognize the difference between what is good for you and bad for you? Does fun mean bad? Does safe mean good?

How do you balance security and risk? When is it best to tread carefully? When should you throw caution to the wind?

How do you evaluate your need and their need? When do you sacrifice yourself for the good of someone else? When do your sacrifices border enabling?

Living only for our own comfort is the worst kind of extravagance; and truly brings no satisfaction in the end. And a life of consistently compromising ourselves to accommodate the agendas of others only serves to annihilate us and the gifts we could share with the world.

Can we ever really know the danger from the dance? I don’t think we can. At least not until our decisions finally play themselves out. But a really good indicator that we’re making the right decision may be to question our motives for the choices we make.

Am I acting from a place of love or am I acting from a place of fear?

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

How Do You See The World?

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200 words, alive, beauty, community, courage, creating, creativity, danger, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, dream, end of the world, Fear, generosity, happy, hope, kindness, life, living, living in the moment, love, Purpose, safe, vulnerability, world issues

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

~ Wayne Dyer

IN MANY WAYS, WE LIVE WITH what we dream and create. Our lives reflect the energy we’ve been putting into them. If we believe people are always out to get us, that is the scenario we unwittingly create and see. If we believe that people are good at heart, that is what we tend to nurture in others and see.

Does that mean if we’ve always believed the world to be hostile, there’s no love in it? Or if we’ve always been loving, there is no hostility in the world? No. But that’s likely what we’re inclined to ‘notice’ more in our daily lives.

One might think that it’s only those who are safe and loved that can see a loving world, but in my experience, it’s often those who are vulnerable and in danger who see the love in the world.

Anne Frank, whose family faced mortal danger, took the time to jot down these words: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

How do you see the world?

Lucky To Be Alive

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200 words, alive, bigger purpose, community, compassion, courage, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, family, Fear, humanity, life, Life's like that, lifetime, living in the moment, love, miracle, mission, odds, Relationships, respect, responsibility

I love life because what more is there?

~Anthony Hopkins

Life is the most amazing miracle ever! You and I are pretty lucky just to be alive. The odds of our parents even meeting were 1 in 20,000. The odds that they would stay together long enough to have children were 1 in 2000.

And that’s just your parents, the odds are so much smaller when you consider all the other variables!

We could spend our entire lifetimes just marveling about how our heart pumps blood through our vessels, how our lungs take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide, the way our body works to sustain and repair itself and keep us going without any conscious effort on our part.

If you think about it, it is really quite remarkable!

But life is so much more than that. Life is about learning how to love and respect ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbours, our beautiful planet, and all the abundant life that exists on its surface. Life provides us an opportunity to exercise compassion, practice sacrifice, overcome fear and grow in courage and humility.

I do not want to squander my time here. How about you?

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

The Odds Infographic

My Name

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answers, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, Fear, just ask, lessons, Lhasa, life, love, miracle, Purpose, questions, Relationships, safe, strong, waiting, weak

Why don’t you ask me

How long I’ve been waiting

Set down on the road

With the gunshots exploding

I’m waiting for you

In the gloom and the blazing

I’m waiting for you

I sing like a slave I know

I should know better

I’ve learned all my lessons

Right down to the letter

And still I go on like this

Year after year

Waiting for miracles

And shaking with fear 

Why don’t you answer

Why don’t you come save me

Show me how to use

All these things

That you gave me

Turn me inside out

So my bones can save me

Turn me inside out 

You’ve come this close

You can come even closer

The gunshots get louder

And the world spins faster

And things just get further

And further apart

The head from the hands

And the hands from the heart 

One thing that’s true

Is the way that I love him

The earth down below

And the sky up above him

And still I go on like this

Day after day

Still I go on like this 

Now I’ve said this

I already feel stronger

I can’t keep waiting for you

Any longer

I need you now

Not someday

When I’m ready

Come down on the road

Come down on the road 

My name, my name

Nothing is the same

I won’t go back

The way I came  

~ Lhasa De Sela

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

When Someone Loves You…

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200 words, abuse of power, belong, compassion, courage, Diana Schwenk, family, Fear, feelings, freedom, gift, heart, Hump Day Chronicles, kindness, life, love, mindful, passion, strong, weak

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.

Billy – age 4

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  Love  ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

Some say…

Love is a feeling dependent on current circumstances. Love is a made up human construct. Love is finicky. Love is possessing. Love hurts. Love doesn’t last. Love is a nice word for lust. Love must be earned. I’ll only love you if you love me. Love means you would take the blame for me. Love means I own you. Love makes you weak. Love is irrational.

Others say…

Love your neighbor as yourself. Love is a verb. Love is forever. Love is unconditional. Love is the answer to every question. Love is selfless. Love is letting go. Love is an act of your will. Love nourishes. Love wants the best for you. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love makes you strong. Love makes you feel like you belong.

I have heard so much about love and what it means to people. But never have I heard such an eloquent way to describe love as stated by 4-year old Billy in the above quote.

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

What do you say?

The One in the Arena

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achievement, Act, courage, critic, daring, defeat, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, failure, Fear, life, pain, pride, Purpose, striving, strong, struggles, success, victory, weak, worthy cause

There are many men who feel a kind of twister pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities – all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Teddy Roosevelt

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

What If When A Storm Comes In…

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200 words, believe, brave, change, courage, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, Fear, first steps, goodness, greater good, grief, growing up, illness, life, Life's like that, living in the moment, loss, peace, Purpose, Storm, strength, things we cannot change

I promise you,

these storms are

only trying to

wash you clean.

 – Jessica Katoff

Wow – this quote really lifted my spirit when I read it the other day! The idea that suffering does not have to be in vain is oddly comforting and hopeful. In the same way that the pains of childbirth lead to new life, the challenges we face in daily living are ultimately meant for our good.

What if it’s true?

What if those rough spots in life; like losing someone we love, illness, defeat and change are meant to wash us clean, meant to remove the layers of useless garbage that we haul around day after day?

What if when a storm comes in, we can choose to slow our breathing, to calm ourselves, to yes – acknowledge and feel the moment, but then soothe our frightened selves with the understanding that we can get through it by (for lack of better words) getting out of our head, RISING above our situation, SEEING the bigger picture, BELIEVING in our ability to get through it, no matter the outcome, and TAKING that first step into the storm KNOWING we will be washed clean?

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

ALIVE – My Word For 2017

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200 words, alive, anger, authentic, believe, courage, Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, Fear, grief, integrity, joy, laughter, living in the moment, real, Relationships, sadness, true to yourself

Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

Ernest Hemingway

I love this Hemingway quote. It calls me to be present in the NOW and to give all of myself to the moment at hand. And not only that, it dares me to fully experience the moment using all of my senses – to be wholly alive.

Life is sweet. Just to be here is a wonderful thing – even in difficult times. The odds were stacked against me to even be born! Yet here I am, and how easy it is to take my life for granted, to forsake what is right in front of me for what was, or what may, or may not be.

Alive.

I can feel my blood pumping through my veins just saying it! And so I know, it’s the perfect word for me in 2017.

~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~

My words for previous years