Tiny Revolutions №72: Hyper Sensing

awakenings abound 🌤

Jun 8, 2021

Summer vibes continue apace here at Tiny Revolutions HQ. We’re striking up conversations with strangers, we’re meeting up with old friends in person, we’re planning vacations and generally behaving like people who’ve been cooped up for months and months and months on end.

I took my own advice last week and have been trying to go as easy as possible – no new projects, doing less overall but devoting great attention to the things I’ve already committed to. Trying to take my head out of the digital world and more into the real, but, you know, judiciously.

It’s been great. I’m coming out of that exhausted phase I wrote about a few weeks ago, where I was keenly aware of having lost the executive functioning required to manage a social life after so long of not really having one. The doing less has been helpful, but it’s also just building back the muscles required to juggle things.

So now that I’m not as tired, I’ve been feeling more myself, and therefore more present. More attuned to things like the quality of light, smells, colors, tastes, etc. It’s fascinating. As an example, the jasmine here in L.A. is always fragrant this time of year, but this year it seems especially pungent – every time I pass a bush I have to stop and fully take it in. Same with all the flowers, really.

I’m sure this is somehow connected to less mask wearing, but I also think it’s bigger than that. Just one of the side effects of the world opening back up again, both literally and figuratively, and being healthy and strong enough to enjoy it.

Maybe it’s another aspect of gratitude, too. Some friends and I resumed an ongoing game night (Mexican Train Dominoes, y’all!), and I was almost giddy the whole time at just being there. It was pure joy to experience that simple activity of connection – one that I definitely took for granted before the pandemic. So nice to be back!

But enough about me. I’m curious to know what you’re noticing out there. Let me know (anonymously, if you want):

Tell Me Here

On to some things I found worth sharing this week…

I love this suggestion.

Kyle Shevlin @kyleshevlin

The single, best thing I’ve learned recently is actually a simple phrase: “Safe to try”. When a change is proposed, rather than fixate on its correctness and getting it perfect, try asking “Is it safe to try?” Doing so changes everything.

Feeling this.

Alex Dimitrov @apoemcalledlove

I love how summer returns you to yourself

Prehistoric music! (click in to play)

dusttodigital

A post shared by @dusttodigital

Gave me a giggle.

⭐️wynter mitchell rohrbaugh⭐️ @wyntermitchell

And now we’ve said it

Quote I’m Pondering:

We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life; not in avoiding pain, but in being pain when it is necessary to do so. Too large an order? Too hard? On the contrary, it is the easy way.

- Charlotte Joko Beck in Everyday Zen

This poem 😍

Note from the Accountability Department

Once again I was a day late with the newsletter – I’m finding my Sundays are a bit more hectic now that there’s more going on in the world. So just a heads up that things might be erratic for a while.

Thanks for reading, as always.

😘

Sara

p.s. Really do tell me what you’ve been up to and how you’ve been. I want to know!