Silver Lining Musings by Celeste

Author: Silver Lining Musings by Celeste

  • Boundaries

    Do you ever notice that sometimes virtually all the people around you say the same thing or have the same realization or experience, all at the same time?  It is almost like the universe puts out a bulletin to everyone. 

    Maybe it is the spring, but suddenly people around me are telling me that they made a choice in their life to set boundaries in places they hadn’t before.  One person I know had an absolutely terrible family vacation and at the end decided, no more.  She decided that when people around her had crappy attitudes or intentions, she was not going to suck it up and go along with the plans or vacation, or anything anymore just to keep the peace.  She decided she would just say no. 

    Another person I know was in knots trying to help a relative who was never happy with anything she said or did or how hard she tried to care for that relative.  Finally, this friend also said no more.  She drew the line and decided that while family obligation was important, so was self-preservation. 

    Both these people set boundaries.  After they did, both people said that they felt huge changes in their life.  One person told me she felt like she had been reborn as a new person with a new sense of freedom!  Lots of people have the same awareness when they set boundaries. 

    The thing about boundaries is that when you make boundaries it signifies that you are in charge of your life.  You are not guilted into actions because of family or other reasons.  Besides being in charge of your own life, it may help those other people involved to be more responsible for their own actions.  When you change the direction of your life from doing things you “have to” to what you “want to”, the dynamics of your life change.  You can focus on what you want or need and focus on the person you really are.   You can be creative, change your schedule, or re-prioritize what is going on in your life. 

    It may be worthwhile to see if and when boundaries are needed in your life. It can be hugely empowering. 

    Finding the good in all things,

    Celeste

  • Beauty and the Van Gogh Exhibit

    How often do you see beauty in the world around you?   Beauty can be in anything from seeing clouds over a mountaintop or hummingbirds in your yard.  Do you see beauty?

    Some say seeing beauty instills a level of peace or happiness inside you.  Maybe it does that, but it can also bring awareness to you that you are part of something bigger than yourself. 

    I saw the Van Gogh immersive exhibit in Scottsdale, Arizona, a few months ago.  I wanted to see the exhibit ever since I heard about it.  Van Gogh was a prolific painter with a very distinctive style.  He painted what he saw and what he was most aware of, which was flowers, people, landscapes and himself.

    The immersive part was because the exhibit was in a large room where examples of Van Gogh’s paintings were on the walls and floors and then artistically changed from one scene to another to the accompaniment of music.  The background music was of a classical style with some adapted modern songs and some orchestral arrangements.  

    Especially distinctive were the eyes of the people Van Gogh painted, almost as if they were looking at you, or showing incredible depth in their eyes.  Maybe it was my imagination but it looked like some of portraits randomly blinked their eyes. 

    Whoever put the exhibit together was very creative and the fading and transformation of the artwork was truly beautiful and exhilarating.  There was a scene where all the screens showed white flowers and all the petals of the white flowers seemed to be flying around and then blowing away.  This particular panorama was so beautiful that it evoked a level of joy in me so intense that I actually teared up.  How often does a person see something that stirs their soul in a good way?  I had this same sensation when I saw thousands of black butterflies on the walls in an exhibit of the Phoenix Art Museum. 

    It gives me hope when you see the beauty in the world around you and know that someone else had that kind of capacity and creativity inside them to see it and then execute it through art or music or some other medium, or you see the natural beauty in the world around us. 

    If you look for beauty, you will find it.  Sometimes it is right in front of you and sometimes you have to search it out.  However you find it, it will change your perception of your world. 

    Finding the good in all things,

    Celeste

  • In the beginning…

    We are just barely into the New Year.  Universally, we tend to use the start of the New Year to reexamine our goals for the next year.  I have been thinking about the things that I thought would happen last year, and either did or didn’t. 

    Friends of mine thought there would be great upheaval in the financial markets, or the 3I/Atlas might be a spaceship with an influence on Earth (which maybe it did and I didn’t notice it), or people unpredictably dying or recovering. 

    So I look at the New Year and visualize what I want to be different from what has already happened in the past years.  Are smaller, incremental changes better than one or two larger changes that invariably become unsuccessful?  Who knows?  But still, this is a time for reflection. 

    The question is when to do the reflection.  I think it is important to always have some alone-time to just let things settle and think about the factors for various decisions.  I know people that have so many distractions in their life that they never have time to collect their thoughts. 

    Goals are also important because they give you hope that you can effect change in your life.  For example, I started to have a belief that I needed to do something more important with my life than just the day-to-day work and living.  This happened because an acquaintance started asking me about knowledge and wisdom that I knew and I was able to communicate with him in a way that made a difference in his life. And so I wondered how I could communicate with more people, so, ergo, here is the first entry in my new blog. 

    One of the main things I believe in is to see the positive in situations.  Like the saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  For example, maybe you have a tough job, but did you learn a new skill or how to do something better or practice patience? 

    Whether you see the positive or negative in life influences the joy and peace you have in your life.  Sometimes it is difficult to see the positive, but worth it. 

    Finding the good in all things,

    Celeste