Dallas Clayton

  
Dallas Clayton - Carson Daly from Dallas Clayton on Vimeo.


What inspires you about his story?

Maryn McCombie

 

Why are we scared to dream?
 

Why are we scared to break away from what others (society, friends, family, etc.) expect of us even when we know they may be wrong?
 
Think of someone who's presence or attitude liberates you. What does that feel like? What is that person like?

Open Your Windows

In a recent concert I attended, the Singer/Songwriter performing paused to talk about despair and suffering. He said that often we are our own worst enemy. This is his wisdom:

[Despair] is an unnecessary thing, I believe it's self-perpetuating. And I know that in my darkest hour, a lot of times I am chewing the cud of my own sorrow. And that's dangerous, because there is Light all around you, you just have to lift up your head and look in the periphery. We put blankets over our heads, and blinders; we close all the windows, pull all the blinds. It's very dangerous to do that.

Open Your Windows. -Sufjan Stevens, Portland, OR, 6/2015

When The Mountain Defeats You

Holocene, Bon Iver
Beginning and ending choruses:

And at once I knew I was not magnificent
Strayed above the highway aisle
Jagged vacance, thick with ice
And I could see for miles, miles, miles


And at once I knew I was not magnificent
High above the highway aisle
Jagged vacance, thick with ice
But I could see for miles, miles, miles 

Have you ever had a time when you realized you weren't as strong as you hoped? What do you when your mountains defeat you? Why is it important at times, to feel small, to see weakness? How do you forgive yourself? How do you heal? How do you move forward?

on being lost

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh:

What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?

Does this same question every weigh on your mind?
What are you good for? How will you be of service to your world?

Answer this honestly. Lift the mask of self-hatred we all seem to wear and answer. Ask people you trust. But really ask yourself and find the good for yourself. No one else's answers will matter as much as the one you supply. Go on a walk and think about it. If you listen and love yourself, you will hear it. 

Van Gogh was so lost, and yet he was so beautiful. He couldn't always see it, but we can. Believe you have as much to offer this world as he did. For a man that believed he was of no worth to this world, we sure love and needed him. Maybe you are as wrong as he was. 

Consider hating yourself just a little less for not having all the answers in this moment, for not knowing exactly who you are, for not knowing exactly what you want, and for feeling or being a little or a lot lost. Lost doesn't mean we are worthless. You have a place. 

Run if you want to: Bobbi Gibb

When she applied to run in the Boston Marathon in 1966 they rejected her saying: “Women are not physiologically able to run a marathon, and we can’t take the liability.”

Then exactly 50 years ago today, on the day of the marathon, Bobbi Gibb hid in the bushes and waited for the race to begin. When about half of the runners had gone past she jumped in.

She wore her brother’s Bermuda shorts, a pair of boy’s sneakers, a bathing suit, and a sweatshirt. As she took off into the swarm of runners, Gibb started to feel overheated, but she didn’t remove her hoodie. “I knew if they saw me, they were going to try to stop me,” she said. “I even thought I might be arrested.”

It didn’t take long for male runners in Gibb’s vicinity to realize that she was not another man. Gibb expected them to shoulder her off the road, or call out to the police. Instead, the other runners told her that if anyone tried to interfere with her race, they would put a stop to it. Finally feeling secure and assured, Gibb took off her sweatshirt.

As soon as it became clear that there was a woman running in the marathon, the crowd erupted—not with anger or righteousness, but with pure joy, she recalled. Men cheered. Women cried.

By the time she reached Wellesley College, the news of her run had spread, and the female students were waiting for her, jumping and screaming. The governor of Massachusetts met her at the finish line and shook her hand. The first woman to ever run the marathon had finished in the top third.

Thank you, Bobbi Gibb.

Regrets: ERASURE

DANg.

being alone

Do you think it is important to have alone time? Why?

How do you spend yours?

What is comfortable about being alone? 

What is uncomfortable about it?
Why are we afraid of being alone?

“Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Assignment: Spend time alone. For a set amount of time. For 7 days (they don't need to be consecutive.)

Alone= 

1. No phone (take it with you for safety, but do not get on social media or text unless it's your mother). 
2. No other humans. 
3. No pets (ok, maybe pets). 
4. No TV. 
5. No video games/computers. 
6. No music for at least half of your "alone time." 
7. Sleeping doesn't count. 
8. You can walk, or run, or hike. 
9. You can just sit. 
10. Yoga or jump rope or climbing trees are good ideas. 
11. Take public transportation such as buses or Front-runner. 
12. Ride a bike, scooter, or skateboard.
13.  Take yourself on a drive. 
14. Take yourself to dinner. 
15. Slow your mind down and stop distracting yourself for a little bit. 
16. Just listen: to the wind, to your heartbeat, to the universe.
17. It's ok to just be. Allow yourself to just "be."

"I wonder if I'm allowed ever to see
I wonder if I'm allowed to ever be free

I wonder if I'm allowed just ever to be" 

-Jonsi, "Tornado" 

 

It may be when we no longer

know what to do,

that we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer

know which way to go,

that we have begun our real journey.

-Wendell Berry