Words for Wednesday: Recent Episodes
Dara Zycherman
Explore mindfulness, creativity, and philosophy each Wednesday morning in an engaging 5 minutes or less. Intimately narrated, Dara Zycherman offers up questions and activities to provoke deeper inner analysis. This mid-week pick-me-up will help you reflect and re-center.
For more about adopting a minimalist and mindful lifestyle, visit whylessequalsmore.com.
Be at ease in your own life.
Mitchell, Stephen. Tao Te Ching. HarperPerennial, 1992, p. 68. __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Where can sharing lead you? __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Do you fear finality?
Herbert, Frank. Dune. New York, ACE, 1965. p. 219. __________________________________________________ As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Mindfulness can take many shapes. __________________________________________________ As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Adolescent adventure, if only through the pages.
Karr, Mary. Cherry. New York, Penguin, 2000. p. 5. __________________________________________________ As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
How real is your imagination? __________________________________________________ As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Things carry more than themselves.
von Morstein, Petra. “Thing Poem.” An Alle. 1969. __________________________________________________ As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
How to say good-bye.
Bishop, Elizabeth. “One Art.” Geography III. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1976, p. 40 __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
You can try to control, but at some point, it’s time to surrender. __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
How do you approach your curiosity with other people? __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Do you fly in your dreams?
Atwood, Margaret. “Flying Inside Your Own Body.” Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New: 1976-1986. Houghton Mifflin, 1987, p. 65.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
A brief introduction to philosophy.
“Philosophy: A brief guide for undergraduates.” American Philosopher Association. https://www.apaonline.org/page/undergraduates. Accessed Oct. 21, 2020. __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Decades later, Aldo Leopold’s words still ring true, though too often ignored.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, And Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, 1949, pp. 96, 101.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Peer into your darkness.
Masters, Robert Augustus. Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark: Breaking Free from the Hidden Forces That Drive You. Sounds True, 2018.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
How do you treat your home? __________________________________________________
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
What is your relationship to trees?
Neruda, Pablo. “Lost In The Forest.”
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Take a deeper look into anger.
Whyte, David. The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. Many Rivers Press. 2014, p. 13.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Create a space for creative mess by clearing out the mundane.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Where do your emotions come from?
Barrett, Lisa Feldman. How Emotions Are Made. 2nd ed., First Mariner Books, 2017, pp. 38-39, 140-141.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
What is your relationship to Auras?
Berry, Emily. “Aura.” Stranger, Baby. Faber & Faber, 2017.
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As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Our strange relationship with the truth.
Blanton, Brad. Radical Honesty: How To Transform Your Life By Telling The Truth. 1994. Stanley, VA, Sparrowhawk Publications, 2003.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Welcome to generosity.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Forget about the proximate cases of distractions, focus on your discomfort.
Eyal, Nir (with Julie Li). “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.” Dallas, Benbellabooks, 2019.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
When the gift of gab turns into gossip.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Who makes up your inner family?
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Why to sit in a satsang.
Kempton, Sally. “Come Together: How to DIY Your Own Satsang.” Yoga Journal, Revised Oct. 9, 2017; original Aug. 27, 2007. https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/come-together-3.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
The pleasures of a pedestrian.
Nicholson, Geoff. The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, and Literature of Pedestrianism. Riverhead Books, the Penguin Group, 2008.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Old texts can hold new ideas.
The Upanishads: Breath of Eternal Life. Translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester. 1948. New American Library, a division of Penguin Group, 1957, p. 94.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
It’s okay to be confused.
Saunders, George. The Braindead Microphone. Riverhead Books, the Penguin Group, 2007.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Meaningful questions produce meaningful answers.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Don’t forget to pack a note!
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Nature deserves praise.
Harjo, Joy. “Praise the Rain.” Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems, W.W. Norton & Company, 2015.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
There are different ways to shift perspective.
Sagan, Carl. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. The Random House Publishing Group, 1994.
As a minimalist lifestyle coach and professional organizer, I'd love to help you build a more mindful and peaceful lifestyle. Please visit me at whylessequalsmore.com to access free resources and learn more about my services.
Meditation, of the floral variety.
Oliver, Mary. “Moccasin Flowers.” The Atlantic. June 1987. p.64.
If you’ve forgotten, it’s time to get excited about magic.
Forrest, Mabel. “Boy-Dreams.” Alpha Centauri. 1909.
Turning the tables on our inner editor.
Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones. Boston, Shambhala, 1986, 2005, p. 28.
Right and left, or east and west.
Lent, Jeremy. The Patterning Instinct. New York, Prometheus Books, 2017, p. 197.
Do you hold a hidden creative calling deep within you?
Jarvis, Chase. Creative Calling. New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2019, pp. 23-24.
What if we could confront fear first?
Truman Cooper, Marsha. “Fearing Paris.” Substantial Holdings, Pudding House Publications Chapbook Series, 2002, p. 22.
Take time to praise special places.
Tony Hoagland. Barton Springs. Poetry, Vol. 190, No. 4, July/August, 2007.
We have the choice to make good from the seemingly destructive.
Chodron, Pema. “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living.” Boston: Shambhala,, 2004. p. 36-37 & 42-43.
Smell, mindfully.
Abbey, Edward. “Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness.” New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.
Insight meditation teaches us how to truly see.
Paramananda, “A Practical Guide to Buddhist Meditation.” New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996. p.145-146.
Being truthful is more than simply not telling blatant lies.
Adele, Deborah. The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga’s Ethical Practice. Duluth: On-Word Bound Books, LLC, 2009. p. 49-50.
Change is certain so seize the day.
Frost, Robert. “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” New Hampshire. Henry Holt, 1923."
Focus your life around what is most meaningful.
Susanka, Sarah. The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters. New York: Random House Trade Partners, 2007. p.xiii.
You can’t lose something that’s already broken.
This Cup Is Already Broken. https://www.tarabrach.com/pt-2-impermanence-awakening-insecurity/
Get captured by the moon’s gravity.
Montagu. Lady Mary Wortley. A Hymn to the Moon. 1758.
Patterson, Leigh A. Moon Lists: A Guided Journal.” New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2019. p. 5.
A practice of letting go.
Whittier, John Greenleaf. “Forgiveness.” The Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier: A Reader’s Edition, edited by William Jolliff, Friends United Press, 2000, p. 228.
A negative sounding construct for a positive outcome.
Sivers, Derek. Anything You Want. New York: Portfolio / Penguin, 2015.
Find out what author George Saunders regrets most.
Saunders, George. Congratulations, By the Way. New York: Random House, 2014.
Everyday objects can be experienced deeply as art.
Greif, Mark. Against Everything. “The Concept of Experience.” New York: Vintage Books, 2016. p. 88.
Listen to your heart.
Rinpoche, Sogyal. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2002.
Connection is key.
Rumi, Jelaluddin. The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love & Friendship. Trans. Coleman Barks. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.
It’s always a good time for a love poem.
Gibran, Khalil. “ A Lover’s Call.” A Tear and a Smile. Old Bletchley: Callendar Press, 2017. p. 75-78.
We all breathe. But how well?
Rosen, Richard. The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2002. p. 22.
Don’t just hear. Listen.
Smookler, Elaine. “How to Practice Mindful Listening.” Mindful, Foundation for a Mindful Society, 15 March 2017. https://www.mindful.org/how-to-practice-mindful-listening/.
Sometimes you have to go all in.
Bukowski, Charles. “Roll the Dice” Essential Bukowski: Poetry, edited by Abel Debritto. NY: HarperCollins, 2016, p. 210.
This Nordic tradition can be suportive in your mindfulness practice.
Johansen, Signe. “How to Hygge: The Nordic Secrets to a Happy Life.” New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017. pgs. 5 & 7
Books have dedications- why not moments in our lives?
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine. The Little Prince. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. 1943.
Mindfulness can become your standard operating procedure.
Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment- And Your Life. Boulder: Sounds True, Inc., 2012. p. 26.
Watching birds, watching things, watching yourself.
Williams, Hugo. Birdwatching. The Poetry Review, Vol. 106, No 4, Winter 2016.
Safety is a prison.
Chopra, Deepak. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams. Amber-Allen Publishing and New World Library, 1994. pgs. 81-86.
Find the balance in compassion.
Das, Ram. “How Can We Cultivate a Compassionate Heart to Find Freedom? Feb. 27, 2019. https://www.ramdass.org/cultivate-compassionate-heart-freedom/. Apr. 28, 2019.
Are you afraid of the dark? What creativity lurks in the shadows?
Dickinson, Emily. "We Grow Accustomed to the Dark." The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 325.
Jacobs, Tom. “Dim Lighting Sparks Creativity.” Pacific Standard. Jun. 14, 2017. https://psmag.com/economics/dim-lighting-sparks-creativity-60437. Apr. 26, 2019.
Time to play Adventure Kids.
Solnit, Rebecca. A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Penguin Books, 2005.
Reconnect with nature.
Neruda, Pablo. 100 Love Sonnets. University of Texas Press, 1959.
What would it take to set it free?
Linklater, Kristin. Freeing the Natural Voice. Drama Publishers, 1976.
Your strategy for engaging with others.
Cohen, Brett. Stuff Every Man Should Know. Quirk Books, 2009.
How your own light stops you.
Pressfield. Steven. The War of Art: Breakthrough the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. Black Irish Entertainment, 2002.
There is freedom in quiet.
Rumi, The Essential Rumi. Translated by Coleman Barks. HarperCollins, 2004.
The distance between what is objectively real and what is subjectively so, may be wider than you think.
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. HaperCollins, 2015, pgs. 32 & 118.