“Two trains, life and death. Two trains, two tracks. No one journey is the same, no matter how we all may reach that same final destination.” LifeDeathChoicesDestinyJourneyLife And DeathDestinationAugust WilsonTwo Trains Author:Shellen Lubin
“I sat still for awhile, and I saw something when the mist cleared that I had never fully seen before. If you see my truth as a sign of disrespect (because it conflicts with your truth), then nothing I can ever say can ever have an effect that isn't negative... So I didn't contradict anything. Anything. I just took it all in. And then, yes, I get to go back to my world and do with it what I will. I wouldn't do it for just anyone. But for them, it was worth it. It was so worth it.” LoveTruthVisionListeningDisciplinePrioritiesClarityAutonomyDisrespectMist Clears Author:Shellen Lubin
“Not just the Congress is capitulating to 45/47 and the dismantling of our government: industry, lawyers, even esteemed, independent colleges. It's a horrifying difficult-to-fully-process time. Some of us still have our lives intact-- barely affected by the clenching at our throats and the rising terror-- but there are others losing their life's work-- there are others being kidnapped on the streets-- people who can't stay, people who can't come back, people who are just thrown in prisons of one kind or another here or elsewhere. Whose life matters anyway?” LifeGovernmentHorrorIndependencePrisonCongressTerrorKidnappingDismantleGet Me Out Of Here Author:Shellen Lubin
“...many women have almost always done it differently, power without control, leading without terrorizing, nurturing community and communal input and output like nurturing a family. Maybe that's one of the main reasons powerful men resist women in power; it's not just control they don't want to give up, not just privilege, but exploitation.” FearCommunityFamilyCommunicationPrivilegeControlOpennessExploitationSelflessnessInterdependence 4 All 4 Ever Author:Shellen Lubin
“There is a tricky balance inside a culture, a community, a family— inside each one of us with our relationship with ourselves—a tricky balance between holding forgiveness and holding accountability.” CultureCommunityFamilyBalanceForgivenessAccountabilityFuture Forgiveness Author:Shellen Lubin
“Those who live to make light, are all connected by the web of light we create together .. We have only this moment to spin our section, our story, our song ... but the web itself lives on.” TogetherPurposeSongConnectedStoryLongevityPosteritySpinningIn The MomentLight Web Author:Shellen Lubin
“I have discovered that people don’t learn lessons when they don't suffer the consequences... In Jewish law, it is called Teshuvah, which—appropriately—means both ‘repentance’ and ‘return.’ It is the penance we do in order to be able to return.” LawCultureCommunityAcceptancePunishmentAccountabilityRepentanceConsequencesJudaismFuture Forgiveness Author:Shellen Lubin
“Every fire burns itself out, but only when all the fuel has been exhausted. Here we are, surrounded by fire. Who throws fodder on the flames? Who is lost in the blaze to the blaze? And what damage will it do before it burns itself away completely? Here we are, surrounded by fire, fire starters, fire growers, and fire revelers. Where are the firefighters? We are the firefighters.” LostLossGriefFireTragedyDisasterHeroismFlameFire Fire Everywhere Author:Shellen Lubin
“They' in conventional wisdom, in much literature (like Edward Lear's limericks), in the mouths of conservative (and faux-conservative) politicians refers to traditional society, those of privilege, those with power, those in control of what is known, thought, believed... But 'everybody else'... knows what's going on.” PoliticsBeliefPowerAwarenessThoughtsPrivilegeConservativeControlConservatismWaking Up Author:Shellen Lubin
“Ride the vicissitudes, the circles and cycles of choice, chance, and circumstance, each in their own time, all in time; and let go let go let go all expectation.” ChoicesChanceCircumstancesLetting GoExpectationsCircleCycleFortunes Wheel Author:Shellen Lubin
“We know most often the only way to the other side is through. And so I persist. Persist persist. Persist persist persist. And that is my habit. To persist. Can be good for forward movement. Doesn't make it easy to let go.” ProgressMovementHabitLetting GoPersistenceKeep GoingMoveForwardPersist Persist Persist Author:Shellen Lubin
“Giving up and letting go have similar resonances, and often it is only when you give up that you can fully know and feel who and where you actually are.” FeelingsKnowledgeIdentityLetting GoSurrenderPlaceBalancing Act Author:Shellen Lubin
“When all else fails, find a child to figure it out.” ChildrenBalanceSimplicityPreparationInnocenceOpennessChildWhen All Else Fails Author:Shellen Lubin
“I am memorializing the just-barely-adults (mostly boys, mostly less privileged) who have died fighting wars that for the most part were not their own... the families who have had to go on without them... those who gave their life to this country by standing for our freedoms in non-wars--struggles-- struggles about race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, contraception and abortion rights, the environment, eradication of global disease and world hunger, the right to collectively bargain and unionize... who paid the ultimate price through their civil disobedience, protest, collective action, or just by living in a way that was so challenging to others that they were executed for it... the ones from whom we stole this land and those whose lives we stole to build it... those who were just trying to go to school, pray, shop, watch a movie, be, when they were gunned down in a country that loves its guns far more than its people... those who were killed for driving while black, walking while black, talking while black, sleeping while black. On Decoration Day we are decorated with their blood and their memory” WarBloodMemoryExecutionPersecutionBlack Lives MatterTheftGun ViolenceDecoration DayMemorializing Author:Shellen Lubin
“They say COVID is spread by mouths and noses, but scientists are now saying the greatest risk is assholes.” RiskCovid 19MouthAssholesBelly LaughsNoseLaughing GasBelly Laugh Author:Shellen Lubin
“How do you make hope? For me, it's writing, reading, researching, rehearsing, teaching, coaching, loving--partnering, parenting, friending, all those things that take me outside of myself and take me deeper inside myself at the same time, a beautiful contradictory co-existing reality. We do not know yet what is still to come, but we do know what we can do to find our way through it. Keep making things, keep making hope. It's the least we can do. It's the most we can do.” LoveWritingReadingTeachingPerseveranceConnectionCreateForwardHope Making Author:Shellen Lubin
“See," she said, "I can hold on to you while everything else changes." And she thought she was safe and so, in that safety, could face whatever was to come. And then all of a sudden that you is gone-- that person, that family, that home, that job (maybe even that occupation), maybe even that country, that world-- and there's nothing to hold onto at all, and that self, that life, is gone as well, and yet more self--truer self--than ever before. And how can that all be so true at the same time? And yet it is.” WisdomIdentitySolitudeIllusionAdversitySafetyDisappearAdaptationLetting Go Again Author:Shellen Lubin
“The means determining the end suits me much better than the end justifying the means, and feels much more true even if so much of what we end up setting in motion are the unexpected, unknowable consequences of our choices. I don't mean the choice is simple. I mean that the necessity is. We have to make a choice.” TruthChoicesDecisionBraveryClarityChoiceConsequencesNecessitySimple Choice Author:Shellen Lubin
“Two trains, going down two tracks, two different paths, millions of different journeys. The choice is always to love or not to love. What's it gonna be?” LovePurposeChoicesJourneyDestinationPossibilitiesAugust WilsonTwo Trains Author:Shellen Lubin
“I may not believe that 'all things happen for a reason.' But I do believe that reason may come from all things that happen.” ReasonBeliefSense Author:Shellen Lubin
“He used to be like a Snake Oil Salesman in the wild west hawking his wares in the town square as if at the carny. Branded tower condos. Steaks. Deodorant. Water. Vodka. Ostensible educations--those were pure scam. Sneakers. Playing cards. NFTs. Bibles. Swatches of his found-guilty suit. A Used Car salesman selling cars designed to run just long enough off the lot to get him the bucks and the battle win and plow down everyone around him. But now he's desperate, losing even his ability to coerce and con, which is the only ability he ever had.” AmericaJusticeGuiltDesperatePatriotismDesperationOldCriminalUsed Trump Salesman Author:Shellen Lubin
“He's already been president. We know his policies, his jurist picks, and all his methodologies. We know who he cozies up to and who he leaves out in the cold and diseased air... He's become a Used Trump Salesman. And all his marketers, campaign officials, and media strategists are Used Trump Salesmen with a desperate, deteriorating Used Trump they're equally as desperate to sell.” AmericaJusticeTiredDesperatePatriotismDesperationOldUsed Trump Salesman Author:Shellen Lubin
“We have to find a way to think-- think things through-- think beyond-- go wide-- go deep-- together. One to One and All to All we must Connect Affect Compromise Find a way forward together-- or I truly believe we've lost all hope.” ThinkingHopeCommitmentUnityCompromisePersistenceConnectionDeepForwardThinking Through Author:Shellen Lubin
“Setting boundaries is easy... Holding boundaries is what's hard. But then, over time, something miraculous happens. You set the boundary, you do what you need to do, and you immediately feel lighter, freer, less burdened-- not every time, not with every person-- but with some people every time-- and with every person sometimes-- and a new habit forms of doing it in a way that works better for you and not making yourself suffer for that. I love feeling that I've made a good decision for myself, for the situation, for the long-range outcome.” LoveRelationshipsVisionBalanceBoundariesPreparationDecisionsMiraclesHolding Boundaries Author:Shellen Lubin
“The more we try to concretize what can be known, the less we are open to discover what is not yet known, not yet seen, not yet recognized.” DiscoveryOpennessUnseenUnknownUnrecognizedReplacing Thought Author:Shellen Lubin
“When all else fails, laugh at the quandary. When all else fails, laugh at yourself. When all else fails, love as is.” LoveFaithPerspectiveBalanceLaughterPreparationOpennessWhen All Else FailsQuandary Author:Shellen Lubin
“I'm thinking about how as a human being Trump is immune from all the normal inhibiting factors that cause people to be good, and caring, and careful (whether because they believe in humanity or they fear God's wrath). No self-awareness. No empathy. No humility. No shame. I'm thinking about how as a society we can never wholly become immune from diseased minds like his because if we ever did find a 'perfect' structure, we would calcify the findings of that moment and create a new kind of 'originalism' that could become equally as dangerous as any other (the origin story of the United States, the constitution, the Bible). That belief that it was perfect would itself defeat us.” WisdomSocietyDangerAcceptanceTrumpDiseaseImperfectionSupreme CourtReality QuotesBecoming Immune Author:Shellen Lubin
“Hypocrisy may be the acknowledgement of how one is falling short of one's objectives and ideal behavior but at other times hypocrisy may be the acknowledgement that one is not meeting the external standards of the systems and the society where they are trying to belong, to "fit in" and so may choose to hide aspects of their truest self. Different kind of hypocrisy. Can you recognize the difference? Can you feel the difference?” SocietyBehaviorBetrayalDeceptionHypocrisyConformitySpeaking Hypocritically Author:Shellen Lubin
“The native population of this continent deserves more notice taken than on Indigenous Peoples Day. But this day at least, please, let's learn more about the people whose land we stole (yes, even we whose forebearers came more recently, because we continue to benefit from the theft), and to sit in the complexity that is the building and continuation of our civilization.” JusticeEducationSocietyAwarenessCivilizationAwakeningComplexityTheftIndigenous Peoples Day Author:Shellen Lubin
“Independence is a myth rooted in--and perpetuated by--privilege. There is no independence, only interdependence.” TruthSocietyReflectionStructurePrivilegeMythIndependence DayInterdependence 4 All 4 Ever Author:Shellen Lubin
“Sympathy is not action, and does not absolve us of the need to do something. Action is effective with this travesty, pushing back creates friction and exposure if incapable of stopping the destruction altogether. He's weak tea. Not just Putin can bully him. Even Musk can bully him, even Musk's young son. We have to keep remembering that. And the political minions following him can even more easily be bullied-- that's how he got them on board in the first place. They don't want to lose their place and their power. Do something. Make a call. Write a letter. Attend a protest or a town hall. It may not stop everything, but it may stop something. And at least we'll have tried.” WritingTryingActionPowerCallingProtestBullyDo SomethingEmergencyWeak Tea Author:Shellen Lubin
“Something needs to shift,' you cry. 'I can't deal with it the way it is.' If something needs to shift, shift something. Anything. Even something that doesn't work will cause action, and in action you will figure out more than when you are stuck... When you're stuck... it's hard to get moving again. When you feel like you can't move, any movement will shake things up.” ActionProcessMovementStuckResistanceInertiaShiftMake A Move Author:Shellen Lubin
“It is important to dream, but then, but then, it is also important to do, to make, to attempt, to fail, to learn, to grow, to create, to devise, to fail again, to learn more, to persist, go on, hold on, keep holding on, against all odds, defying logic, and then, and only then you may just work a vision into being.” DreamActionFaithCreationPersistenceLearnPossibilitiesCreateGrowOpen To The Possibilities Author:Shellen Lubin
“This is not an easy time, love, and yet … In order to leap and land, you must leap, And in that moment of leaping, there may be No solid ground, no safety rail, But in that moment you fly.” ActionFaithStruggleFlyingMoving ForwardUnknownFlyThe No New Normal New Normal Author:Shellen Lubin
“We cannot have reckless hope... Everything that actually happens happens in the real world, our real world. We need to take action, have hope and faith, but also learn from what actually occurs... Another tricky balancing act. Another contradictory co-existing reality. Another tightrope dance.” ActionFaithHopeBalancing ActTightrope Dance Author:Shellen Lubin
“Check yourself because it can be a gift to go slowly through an action (an action you do all the time mindlessly) and see how you do it, see it anew, like when an American drives a car in England, or peeling the first pomegranate of the season, or entering anywhere you haven't been for a very very long time.” ActionGiftsCheck YourselfAnew Author:Shellen Lubin
“At some point, we just have to make a choice. Grab the chance or let it go by. Stay and invest or move along. Choose or don't choose. It's all a choice, the choice we make. Big. Little. Over and over. And all the little choices make a life.” LifeDecisionCommitmentLifetimeConsequencesCause And EffectSimple Choice Author:Shellen Lubin
“Might the safest space be this: Safe from having to wear your armor. Safe from having to laugh off your pain. Safe to laugh at your pain, at yourself. Safe to know your truth... Safe to feel... Safe to disagree... Not safe from struggling with the conundrums of life, Safe to struggle with them To sit in the dis-comfort of no-extremes... Safe to spin through all the chaos... And feel the shoulder of another traveler... And know you are not alone. You are not alone.” TruthFeelingCompanionshipTravelingSafe SpaceConundrumsDis Comfort Author:Shellen Lubin
“...don't get more anxious about feeling anxious, especially when the anxiety is so justifiable. It'll just lead to more anxiety. And there is definitely a tipping point... ...know that it's also anticipation ... and possibility ... and hope. Ride the waves ... Feel the excitement. It lets you know you're alive.” LifeHopePossibilityMental HealthExcitementAnticipationJustificationSelf CareAnxiety Is Underrated Author:Shellen Lubin
“Jump in with both feet and full heart and you won't have the same experience as you will if you stand aloof, always judging... second-guessing the choice you made.” DoubtCommitmentExperienceBraveryJudgementQuestioningAvoidanceJudgeSimple Choice Author:Shellen Lubin
“She was one of the greatest losses, bell hooks... a brilliant thinker, and writer, and teacher, reflective and brave and inspiring, revolutionary ideas infused with ancestral wisdom, always coming from a place of love, which kept her in a world of possibility.” ThinkingLoveInspirationalWritingWisdomTeachingReflectionBraveryBell HooksHooked On Hooks Author:Shellen Lubin
“I'm sorry'--like 'I love you'--like many phrases--means more than one thing, even on its surface. So people get confused what they're saying and what they're hearing when the words 'I'm sorry' are spoken... But even when you're clear which kind of 'sorry' is in play, the words of an apology only mean what they are invested with. 'I'm sorry' is the vessel. What's inside the 'sorry' container makes all the difference.” LoveAwarenessCommunicationInvestmentConfusionApologyRemorseSorry For What Author:Shellen Lubin
“Come on! Laugh at it all! Or at least laugh at something! All the shit will still be there to deal with when you're done, but you'll be in better shape to deal with it!” LaughterDareCopingShitCoping MechanismBelly LaughsLaughing GasBelly Laugh Author:Shellen Lubin
“I have learned, we are not our happiest when we get what we want-- then we are prone to pick-- aware of all the flaws and tradeoffs in our realized-but-imperfect fantasy. We are our happiest when we have hope.” HappinessJoyHopePeaceFantasyPerfectionContentmentFlawsImperfectionHope Bubbles Author:Shellen Lubin
“For white Americans (whiteness itself a societal construct that has changed in it definition over time), this new national holiday of Juneteenth, this day off from work, should be like an American Yom Kippur, a Day of Atonement, a day of reflection, a day to keep learning more about how we have failed as a society to live up to our ideals, and what we as individuals can do to make it better, more real, closer to our vision of justice and liberty, a vision that our founding forefathers could not even imagine. 'Do better' should be what all who carry any kind of privilege in this society should say to ourselves and to each other - what can we do, what can you do, to 'do better'?” JusticeEducationLibertyFailureReflectionPrivilegeAtonementDo BetterJuneteenthJuneteenth 2023 Author:Shellen Lubin
“...whatever we do whatever way we move forward there will be damage carried from all previous rows and columns in this mathematical computation we make, all the multi-configured additions and subtractions in language America, in all bases, particularly I'm thinking about at the moment 1492, 1776, 1861, 1867, 1980, 2016, 2020.” FreedomDemocracyProgressRevolutionTyrannyDamageConservatismColumbusCarry Your Load Author:Shellen Lubin
“Despair manifests in multiple ways-- illness, exhaustion, indulgence, malaise-- some days I just have to let it be, whatever form it takes. We have to do what we can, all we can, to turn the tides. But ... but ... Sometimes despair overwhelms and what we need is to do, to create, to make hope.” HopeDespairIllnessTriumphCreateIndulgeExhaustionMalaiseHope Making Author:Shellen Lubin
“It's called Gelotology. (Because it gives you Gelo Belly?) Beyond a giggle, a titter, a chuckle, and way past groaning (although groaning has its profound effects as well), it shakes your very corpuscles, a good belly laugh. It releases endorphins, stimulates the body's painkillers, increases neuropeptides which boosts the immune system, expands blood vessels. What????? It relaxes tension and makes you feel happier no matter what the current conditions.” HappinessConditionsRelaxationImmune SystemGiggleEndorphinsPainkillersLaughing GasChuckleBelly Laugh Author:Shellen Lubin
“It's a balancing act, keeping hope but not letting it drive you to distraction. Because the flip side of hope, the dark side, is the side that keeps you wanting to be somewhere else from where you are, with something else from what you've got-- the side that keeps you from appreciating and feeling fully and deeply what there is in this moment. Hope keeps us in the flow--moving forward-- and I will not underestimate its value, but hopelessness keeps us present in the moment, whether it is the Buddhist hopelessness of non-attachment or the hopelessness of despair.” HopeDarknessDespairFlowDepthValueAppreciationUnhappinessHopelessnessBalancing Act Author:Shellen Lubin
“I think there is a place where hopefulness and hopelessness co-exist, one of my beloved contradictory co-existing realities (what others call a paradox, but paradoxes can be mis-defined themselves, not owning their true contrari-ness and/or co-existence): something like joy-and-hope-in-the-process-of-being-and-becoming, something like awareness-of-distant-goals-without-attachment-to-getting-them, something like satisfaction-in-dissatisfaction. Like riding a roller coaster, being and feeling where it is and feeling where it's going all at the same time, since where it's going is part of where it is, and, whatever the now is, it will never stay there. Something like life.” LifeJoyHopeChangeSelf AwarenessGoalsHopelessnessBeingHopefulnessBalancing Act Author:Shellen Lubin