Tina Stanley, L.C.S.W.

02/28/2025

happy 86th birthday to Parker Palmer today. His writing has been a great source of kind and fierce wisdom for me. If you haven’t already, check out his books, especially including “Saving the Heart of Democracy” which has never been more relevant .

02/26/2025

and the winner of the first tree to bloom in the orchard contest 2025 is… The Santa Rosa Plum! But why can’t I get my fancy new iPhone camera to focus better on those little delicate blossoms?

02/26/2025

Of all the hundreds of calla lily photos I’ve taken and posted over the years, I don’t think i’ve ever captured this angle of this stage before.

02/20/2025

Let's be and create islands of coherence for and with each other as much as we can, dear ones!
Thank you for reminding me of this quote, Mary Keelty!

12/15/2024

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that self-care isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. And while self-care may mean different things to different people, the need for adequate rest is universal. To live well and feel well for as long as possible, it’s essential to bake rest int...

12/06/2024

Winter is the season when our animal bodies need more rest and I like this article that acknowledges the different kinds of rest we need - rest from activities, rest from social interaction, rest from sensory stimulation, etc.

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that self-care isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. And while self-care may mean different things to different people, the need for adequate rest is universal. To live well and feel well for as long as possible, it’s essential to bake rest int...

12/06/2024

Winter is the season when our animal bodies need more rest. I like this article that goes deeper into acknowledging the different kinds of rest we need for our minds/bodies/spirits.

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that self-care isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. And while self-care may mean different things to different people, the need for adequate rest is universal. To live well and feel well for as long as possible, it’s essential to bake rest int...

04/16/2024

I have been revisiting Melody Beatties’ “the L of Letting Go“. I think it was published 30 years ago and now it’s an app! For me, there’s some real tried and true wisdom in here. This is helping me today. so I thought I’d pass it along in case it might help you, too. . 😉

Letting Things Happen

We do not have to work so hard at gaining our insights. Yes, we’re learning that painful and disappointing things happen, often for a reason and a higher purpose. Yes, these things often work out for good. But we don’t have to spend so much time and energy figuring out the purpose and plan for each detail of our life. That’s hypervigilance!

Sometimes, the car doesn’t start. Sometimes, the dishwasher breaks. Sometimes, we catch a cold. Sometimes, we run out of hot water. Sometimes, we have a bad day. While it helps to achieve acceptance and gratitude for these irritating annoyances, we don’t have to process everything and figure out if it’s in the scheme of things.

Solve the problem. Get the car repaired. Fix the dishwasher. Nurse yourself through the cold. Wait to take the shower until there’s hot water. Nurture yourself through your bad day. Tend to your responsibilities, and don’t take everything so personally!

If we need to recognize a particular insight or awareness, we will be guided in that direction. Certainly, we want to watch for patterns. But often, the big insights and the significant processing happen naturally.

We don’t have to question every occurrence to see how it fits into the Plan. The Plan—the awareness, the insight, the potential for personal growth—will reveal itself to us. Perhaps the lesson is to learn to solve our problems without always knowing their significance. Perhaps the lesson is to trust ourselves to live, and experience, life.

Today, I will let things happen without worrying about the significance of each event. I will trust that this will bring about my growth faster than running around with a microscope. I will trust my lessons to reveal themselves in their own time.

Quoted from the app The Language of Letting Go.

01/15/2024

In his “Christmas Sermon on Peace,” Dr. King said:

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.

Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent upon most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed you by a Pacific Islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning and that is poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese.

Or maybe you desire to have cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world.

This is the way our universe is structured. It is its interrelated quality.

We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.

12/29/2023

Over the years, I've tried many different breathing techniques, some were useful to me and some, not so much.
With this one, I feel an immediate shift toward more calmness.

Stanford Medicine researchers showed that five minutes a day of breathing exercises can reduce overall anxiety and improve mood.