“Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love,
grace, and gratitude.”
Denise Waitly
Namastè
©NicholeDonjè
Tag: quotes
The Next Phase
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face”. Eleanor Roosevelt
Today I am sitting here at my desk in my studio simply grateful. Grateful to all of those who have been there for me during my recovery and all of those who have reached out. It is a wonderful gift to have someone you haven’t heard from say hello and check in. Its a simple thing, but knowing that they are there and that the connection we made however long ago still exists is fulfilling.
Something that has become very clear for me in my life is that connection is imperative. I love people. The relationships I have built mean the world to me, even if time has distanced us. Everyone we create a moment with, creates meaning. It may be an acquaintance, a colleague or a friend.
It was a leap for me to share my post yesterday. I have come to realize that as much as I long to connect, I have kept so much to myself. I don’t like to share things that may seem sad or negative, so I simply don’t. When I started this blog I really wondered if I would be able to open up. I am not someone who wants to get on a pedestal about some political topic, I don’t love an argument; and lets face it that’s what most people do on the internet. What I want is a dialogue. I want to built a pathway of openness. You may ask what that means…hell if I know! All I can say is I’m working to find out and sharing my life, my art and my observances is how I feel I can.
We all have stories and experiences. I hope that somehow I might peak someone to share theirs. I don’t necessarily mean with me or the world wide web, but with someone. Being open, vulnerable and taking chances are how we face that fear Mrs. Roosevelt mentions. I myself fear vulnerability. I like to be strong, to know, and admittedly to control. Control is exhausting and lonely. What I realize now is that I was using all the wrong words. What I truly want is to be empowered, wise and collaborative. This is my next phase, this is my intention. This is where I begin again.
Namastè
©NicholeDonjè
Observations 3/13-3/20
I am going to say something so obvious perhaps some will say its not worth saying, but I think we all need to be reminded, and often. My key observation this week is a particular reminder of what every person needs, to be heard and acknowledged.
There have been three incidents this week alone where I received calls with questions and concerns on an issue. The one thing all of them had in common was that they had not felt heard and/or acknowledged.
I stopped and realized that so often we focus on what people “complain” about and not what they are really saying. I thought about how, sadly so many of us have not been taught to say what we mean or ask for what we really need, so instead we complain or feel hurt, get angry or cry.
So this week I decided it was not my job to listen to complaints, but to listen to what happened and how it effected them. My goal was to work through how I could support or help. I wasn’t able to necessarily solve their problems, but I assisted to the best of my ability and that’s all we can really do. More often than not, that’s all people really need.
At first I was uncomfortable and concerned about how to handle their issues, but I thought about my goal to approach my life and the situations in it with compassion. If I am so busy preparing for the conflict, I will not hear the true concern. So I released my worries and simply had conversations with lovely people whom I heard and I am grateful.
My second observation this week is an acknowledgment for myself. For so long I have been protecting myself from people. The problem is I love people. I love connecting and sharing. I love, big. However for so long I have kept this wall around me. It served me in the past but I no longer need protecting so I am taking it down piece by piece and its working. I always wondered why I was the one to have to reach out, make plans, check in. Now I see, how could anybody get past the barrier? They couldn’t. It’s changing. People have been reaching out and making plans. I am open and excited. I have so many friends whom I adore and I am making new ones, which hasn’t happened in a long time. I went to dinner with a new friend just last night and had a wonderful time getting to know someone new, someone interesting and fun.
Tying back to my first observation I have to admit that I too have needed to be heard, I just didn’t realize how often I didn’t speak or turned my head or worked so hard to not need anyone else that it seemed obvious to others I did not need them. I do. We all do. We as people have a basic human desire to be with and share with others.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ― C.S. Lewis
Thank you to all of my friends.
Namastè
In Retrospect
I have always loved words and in that of course, quotes. When people can put into words a concept, philosophy, idea that feeds my soul or makes me take a step back and think it arouses me in such creative and intellectual ways.
I heard this quote years ago that made me take pause and begin to look at my life in a new way. These words literally became a personal philosophy I have striven to integrate into my life, and when I have it has always led me in ways that are unexplainable.
“At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Each and every time I have made a decision and committed to a path, new doors open. Opportunities are laid before me like a kings buffet and all I have to do is acknowledge the gift and step into the life I want.
This week has been just that. When I committed to write daily, I also made other commitments to myself. Two of these commitments were to meditate every day and to nourish and care for myself. In making these commitments (which terrify me by the way) there has been a distinct freedom. Whenever I have to make a decision I simply ask myself, “Is this nourishing me?”. If it is not, I don’t do it.
In turn, this has been an incredibly busy week and instead of feeling depleted I feel energized. I feel like I want to accomplish more, but that more must have purpose and intention, it must fuel my soul. I have had doors open. I started taking a wonderful class to both refresh and deepen my knowledge and skills, and for the first time in too long I am excited to learn. Not only that, but two days after I started I received an offer for another class I had wanted to take free. Then I got another offer to take part in an initiative with an incredible group that I love working with and that has given me so much in the way of getting to where I am.
The concept within Goethe’s quote is no less than miraculous, yet it is telling us that it is all in our own control. I have realized so much of getting the most out of life is all perspective. How we perceive and choose to live in our worlds so often creates our worlds and sadly often we choose to either see only the negative or to not see at all.
I admit sometimes I have been blind; I’m human. However this is a time my vision is simple and it is clear.
Namastè
Nichole
Where I am today in this moment…
For what ever reason right now at this moment I am overtaken with a feeling that cries out to the world…I am here! I am here today; that is a gift. There are days I wake up and there s such a struggle to move forward, to get past the weight of past circumstances or beliefs and then there are days where you know deep down there is a change coming.
A Mark Twain quote keeps filling my head:
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
And today as I was reading a book this quote by Natasha Brown resonated:
“I’ve learned that if you have a power, you are obligated to use it.”
I wish I could say that today I have found these things and suddenly know exactly what to do, but I can’t. What I can say is that when I ask myself these potent questions my mind explodes with emotion and joy and to some extent…terror.
This has been a year of asking myself what I want, not what do I think I want or what should I do, but what do I want and who do I want to be as I go through this life. These are harder questions than we think because once you answer them there is an obligation to make it happen. A contract with yourself that you can no longer avoid signing. A contract that has blank lines to be filled in at a later date and that takes courage. I don’t always believe I have that kind of courage, but I can tell you I know it would be in the contract.
These days I ask myself what my true values are and if the choices I make are in line. Sometimes yes and sometimes no, however I’ll admit I haven’t signed that contract yet. I’m waiting for something, an answer of some sort and I have no idea what it is, but I have to believe it will come. Until then, well…I’m working on it. I suppose that’s the important part.
Nichole Donjé
Haiku 3 – Haiku Mondays
the colored leaves fall
leaving the trees alone now
to sleep quietly
© Nichole Donjé
Who am I? Project (1)
So, I am embarking on a new journey and I’m asking you to come with me. I will be reaching out via Facebook and Twitter asking for your input to help me with a new interdisciplinary art project entitled, Who Am I?
I wrote a poem I have yet to share, I will at some point but not yet. It is one I wrote while researching Langston Hughes, one that reached down into the depths of me and my past to share my history, my journey and who I am becoming.
Oddly as an artist, I started this way. My foundation was visual art then I discovered theatre and fell in love. I became passionate about stories and in doing so loved disassembling them and re-envisioning them while mixing disciplines. I always wanted live music, dance, startling visuals, powerful words and voices. I wanted to make a physically emotional impact with my art.
I am here again, starting again but in a whole new way. I am a producer, I underlined that because over the past couple of years I constantly wanted to avoid the term. So many were looking to me as a producer and somehow it made me feel as though it subtracted the “art” from what I was doing. Now I am seeing it differently. I am embracing this talent and understanding its strength. I have the ability to bring together a vision and people to make something noteworthy and extraordinary. For the first time in a long time I am incredibly exhilarated and inspired.
Funny enough, it is the subject of this project that has made me look back and look deep. To ask, why I have made certain choices? Why do I question what I do? Sadly I have a deeply personal admission: my body image keeps me from my success. There I said it! What seems to be such a simple issue, one I have been ashamed of because it feels so trivial, but in actuality is so commanding that it holds me back from everything I know I am capable of. I have to reach inward and ask sincerely, why?
I have spent a lifetime working to be the “image” of myself I have created in my head. My personal expectations of myself have only continued to become less attainable. The tedious phrase, “If I…then…” has played on repeat in brain for more years than I’d like to admit. The reality I am facing now is that by not accepting myself as I am today imperfections and all, I am disrespecting everything I have worked so hard for and negating everything I have achieved in my life. Sadly this only perpetuates my perceived personal failure that I have seemed somehow determined to achieve.
Its time to change and my change must start with me.
Who am I? How many women ask themselves this question not because they are in a transition, but because they looked in a mirror and made a judgment of themselves that they carry with them throughout the day, each day. Today I am fat, yesterday I was my hair or my skin, the day before my shoes and so on. This mirror we seek our reflection in is not real, but the reflection promoted to us by the media and the brainwashing we have done to ourselves in our denial; too dark, too light, too fat, too thin, too old, too young. When are WE enough?
It doesn’t seem to matter how many forms of proof they show us that airbrushing is rampant and inexcusable, that celebrities wear hair extensions, that “natural” is a color we paint on and no longer what we actually are? We need to stop seeing our reflections on the television and in magazines; comparing ourselves only to the “idealistic” forms sold to us. Its time to start looking around at the beautiful, real people who live among us every day.
Today I choose to step up, look in the mirror and not see only what I look like but who I am; a talented leader, artist, performer and activist. This is not easy to do I wish I could say it is, but I am saying for the first time with true conviction that I will fight each day for myself. To look in the mirror and silence the voice of irrationality and say out loud that I am ready to accept the awesomeness of simply being me!
The Who Am I? project is about women; how we are seen in society and by ourselves. It is about how we affect men and how they affect us. It is about communication. It is about embracing our personal, individual power while opening our minds and sharing ourselves, our truth with the world. Beauty has so much less to do with what we look like and so much more to do with the light we shine, the light we can only ignite if we are willing to release falsehoods and accept the magic of who we are. This takes time and dedication BUT this will change our lives and every life we touch.
Please take this journey with me and look in the mirror and ask each day, Who am I? Then remember who you really are.
Please watch this inspiring video of Lupita Nyong’os‘ speech from the Essence Magazine Awards. It is both heartbreaking and rejuvenating. I watched this and couldn’t help but cry because I remember asking god to give me the strength to change and be something different from what I was not because I was bad, but simply because I believed I wasn’t good enough. I know so many young girls have done this over and over and the older I get the more devastating it is. Society needs to start teaching our children, girls and boys this definition of beauty Lupita talks about and stop perpetuation the deception that breeds self-hatred. We as human beings deserve more.
Calm
There is something about sitting in the grass or an Adirondack chair on a sunny day with the mountains or a lake in site. I go there in my mind when I can. It’s a memory, but also a vision. A vision I use when my mind gets lost in some messed up version of my day.
It would be amazing to wake up each morning and sit on that grass, do yoga and meditate as the birds serenade and the wind blows seductively against my skin; a kiss of cool in the warmth of the sun. Or to sit in the night looking at the stars, the soft music of the trees whistling. Laughing with friends and loved ones.
It is possible.
They say that balance is a myth. Is calm a myth as well? Perhaps constant calm would be boring, perhaps it doesn’t exist? I have found it here and there and it is wondrous! To feel my own breath, for my brain to be quiet and my body accepting in its groundedness.
It is possible.
Why do we fight what is in our own hearts? Why do we not just dance with joy at the challenges? Why is suffering in our nature…or should say, my nature. Who am I to speak for others, though I know so many in lust with chaos. Those are them that I’d love to dance with, to engage and share a calmness with.
Imagine a shared moment; quiet and without expectation or limits. What a dance that is.
It is possible.
Calm is not just the grass. It’s a state of being; an acceptance of the moment. It is a willingness to release the struggle, the chaos – to hand over the reins and say…”okay…” and for that moment to truly know; I’m okay right now. I’m okay as I am. I am enough.
It is possible.
© Nichole Donjé
Haiku 2
hearts with passion live
knowing that compassion thrives
when we forgive
© Nichole Donjé
I KNOW..or at least I thought I did?
At my age now I have recently discovered that what I really am in this moment is a teenage girl searching for who she wants to be in this world. I see this in the books that excite me like HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT series where young women are strong both physically and morally; girls who change the world for having the courage to trust and be themselves. The grown up side is reading LEAN IN and THE POWER OF 2; leadership books that help me find the power within myself to both inspire and be inspired. I find myself seeking inspiration and motivation to be a better person making choices that empower me and those around me.
I want to grow beyond myself.
I don’t necessarily think this is an odd search at my age, but it is oddly unfamiliar. I think in the past, I thought I knew what this meant; now I KNOW what it means and that knowledge somehow makes it scarier and more inspiring all at once.
When we’re young we are daring in a ways we lose as adults. Everything is a discovery because its the first time. As an adult WE KNOW. We know the consequences and the possibilities. We’ve made so many of these mistakes already.
I find at times its harder when you KNOW or at least think you do. Your inhibitions are lassoed. But here is the real recent discovery, or should I say rediscovery. Its ALWAYS the first time ANYTIME because no matter what each time is new, and different things can happen. I think we spend so much time telling ourselves I KNOW that we forget that there is opportunity for change and reinvention in every action.
I’m not saying that the concept of perfecting an act isn’t true. But think about it, in every practice session there is the opportunity for new insight, for new and more efficient skills and yes for something to go wrong, something unpredictable.
Perhaps your practicing your sword juggling act for the theatre festival next week. You’ve taken the time to build your skills and perfect your act. You haven’t dropped a sword in 3 years.
Now your outside in a crowd, the stakes are high…you drop a sword! The skills you’ve built through hours and hours of practice ensure you react quickly, instinctively. No one gets hurt. BUT, you dropped the sword. Here’s the question: Is that the end or is it an opportunity?
Yes consequences will be had; worst case, the loss of the job, best case you work it into the act and all believe it was on purpose.
Where is the opportunity?
Its in learning what went wrong. It is in figuring out not just how you reacted physically, but mentally. It is in facing the fear of doing it again even when you failed to be perfect.
It is in our growth and courage that we become better people. Stronger people. People who’s example WE want to emulate.
Namaste
© Nichole Donje