Practice being present in each moment
and find the the gifts each day has to offer.
– C.A. Sullivan
Mindfulness
Category: Lifestyle
The In Between
Achieving success is a dance between patience and taking action. Knowing when to take a step forward and knowing when to wait. If you’re always moving, you’ll miss all the small achievements in between where you once were and where you’re going. Being able to sit in the in between is to be content.
– C.A. Sullivan
Trailblazer
Don’t follow the road most taken.
Lay down your own tracks,
move forward with confidence.
When you start to lose hope,
look back upon what you’ve built
and remember how far you’ve come.
– C.A. Sullivan
Grateful at Christmastime and Always
During the hustle and bustle of Christmas time, we all go about buying presents and driving like psychos, hoping to get that great sale we saw, needing desperately to buy that expensive thing for that person we love, making sure we don’t leave anyone out of our gift giving, we trample pregnant women at Walmart and we rush rush rush. We all take so much for granted, forgetting what Christmas and the holidays are all about.
The thought of family and love and togetherness are with us for but a moment and then forgotten again with the new year. We go about living our lives with it’s day to day duties and many misfortunes and we forget what a gift we have been given. The gift of life and of family and of friends and most of all the gift of love, all types of love.
For without love the world would be a dark and lonely place. Love gives us hope for tomorrow and hope for the future. It makes the misfortunes we come across less of a burden to face. If we could only keep this thought of gratefulness with us all year round we might get a little more out of life, we might face our struggles with more ease, we might appreciate those around us who love us a little more, and we might see the world with new eyes.
It seems so unfair to live with such ungratefulness when there are those of us who were taken from life too soon. To live with graciousness and love even in the darkest of times is to honor those who won’t get the chance to live again. So at Christmas time, while I’m feeling the sting of sensitivity, I’m grateful for everyone in life, past and present.
It’s all of you, family and friends, that have shaped who I am, kept me strong, helped me while I was down, laughed with me when I was happy and made memories that will last a lifetime. It’s my new years resolution to try to keep this thought with me year round. How about you?
– C.A. Sullivan
The Grind
I constantly feel the need for change even though I despise it and find it uncomfortable because without change, I get stuck in the monotony of the day to day grind. All it feels like is work, eat, sleep, repeat. I forget my purpose and my passions and it becomes easier and easier to push them aside.
I get so caught up in the imbalance that I get to a place of silence where I’m a shell of person. It’s almost like my brain shut down for anything other than the essentials or working. Which technically is an essential…work produces money that pays for the essentials. That’s no life to live.
That’s the kind of life where you blink and you’re 90 and realized you never really lived. I don’t want that.
But how do we break free from the monotony?
– C.A. Sullivan
All Dressed Up with Nothing to Say
Writing is really difficult when I feel like I have nothing to say. Most of the time I’ve got an opinion or a thought and just want to share it because I feel strongly about it or because I feel like others could benefit or relate to it.
Other times, I feel like I do today. I have nothing to say that’s important so I’m sitting here staring at my laptop screen. With everything that’s going on in the world, my voice feels so small and insignificant. What could I possibly have to say that’s going to make a difference or that people will even care about for that matter.
The truth is, I don’t know. I just have to create what I create because it’s what I love and hope someone cares about it. Often, I feel as though you either need to have a unique enough voice to be heard or you need to stand with other people who are saying the same thing to be heard.
If I try to write about something that I think other people want to read or care about, I lose interest or my writing comes across as insincere, 100 percent of the time.
I create because I want to. I create what makes me happy. I create what I’m passionate about. If I were to start creating for others instead of myself, I would certainly lose my authenticity and passion for what I do. It may not always be the best writing or something that anyone cares about, but it came from an honest place.
Even if it that means all I did was write this really boring post.
– C.A. Sullivan
Spirit Animals
Do you believe in omens? I always try to see the messages in the world that come to me which is why I love this Animal Spirit Guides book by Steven Farmer.
Anytime I see an animal or dream of an animal, I look it up in this book to see what it means. Kind of like a dream dictionary but for animals.
For weeks I watched as these baby robins outside my window. I got to see their parents feed them, I watched them grow and I got to see them hop around the yard while they were learning to fly.
It was a pretty amazing experience. Because I had been lucky enough to witness this I figured it must mean something.
I checked my Spirit Animal Guides book and sure enough it had an important message that meant something to me. Among other meanings, it said I have a beautiful song inside me, do whatever it takes to share it. Expect new growth, be patient and watch how my dreams come true.
I’m sure this could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but to me it means keep writing and keep creating. My time of more success is coming.
– C.A. Sullivan
Conquering Anxiety
Don’t allow your anxiety to cripple you from becoming who you were meant to be.
Easier said than done right?
Anyone struggling with anxiety knows it’s not something that will just go away, it’s something you have to work through, and it’s hard. I struggle with it often and find it difficult to even function some days. The days in which I can’t work through it and have to wait it out are the worst.
I try a lot of things to help ease my anxiety like teas, paleo santo, essential oils and CBD. I also read a lot and try to implement different tips and practices that I find.
I watched this great free course video the other day from life coach, Natalie Bacon, on how to conquer anxiety. She defines anxiety and gives you pointers on how to work through it rather than escape it. It was almost 40 minutes and it full of helpful insights.
It’s not the kind of free course that will make you wish you could go back in time and get those minutes of your life back either. Trust me, I’ve been there. It provides real tips you can apply to your life and makes you think.
She has a podcast on anxiety too that I haven’t listened to yet but you can access both the podcast and the free course video I watched using the link below.
If you have anxiety, check it out. You might find it useful.
Anxiety
C.A. Sullivan
A Weekend Adventure to Wonderland
We went to Jim Thorpe, PA over the weekend to walk around and go shopping. Yes, shopping! IN STORES! It was the first time I had been shopping in a store that didn’t sell groceries in 4 months since COVID started. Jim Thorpe is this adorable historic town with shops, museums and train ride scenic tours. Unfortunately, the museums were still closed and the train tour wasn’t running but most of the shops and restaurants were open.
The shops carry all sorts of items from homemade soaps and new age items to antiques and books to handmade crafts, mead and wine. One of the shops, BeeStung, had character/movie themed items like jewelry, boxes, bottles and other tchotchkes that were made by the shop owner.
I couldn’t resist all the Alice in Wonderland themed stuff! I love different versions of the story and have quite a few renditions already from novels to graphic novels to pop up books! This was the perfect opportunity to buy props for photos for my bookstagram account.
With loot in hand and plenty of Alice in Wonderland books at home, I was ready and excited, to set up my displays. Check out my photo shoot from this weekend.
For those of you who don’t know, Bookstagram is a community on Instagram that shares photos of all things books! There’s also a lot of writers and authors that are part of the community. Not only are the photos people share amazing but the community is really supportive.
I started my Bookstagram account kind of by accident. I wanted a place where I could share short quotes and writings that weren’t in a long blog format.
I started by sharing a few posts that included my writings on backgrounds that I made with an app. Then, I realized that I have this awesome secretary desk and vintage books that I could take photos of and pair them with my writings. So I took a bunch of pictures one day and started sharing them on Instagram with short passages I had written.
I don’t know how, but I stumbled across these other accounts who shared photos of books. Not just books, but entire libraries of books. Shelves and shelves of books and bookish items. I instantly fell in love with all the beautiful book aesthetics!
I realized that I could do something similar but combine my writing and marketing knowledge with it. Now I share photos of books, journals, my writings and marketing tips.
I actually took a photo of one of my journals, open, so that I could use one of my editing apps to write my passages on it for posts. I hope to gain more followers, but in the meantime it’s just been really fun to set up the photo shoots and share my thoughts with a like minded community.
C.A. Sullivan
Spectacular Me
I wrote this a little over one year ago. At the time, I was in a job that made me unhappy, lost an employee and had to pick up that slack while continuing to do my job that was already too heavy a work load. I had also lost my cat to a 6 month struggle with cancer and had been searching for a new job with little success and much frustration. I realized that I could actually take on more than I had thought, even in the midst of grief, anger and stress and actually come out on top. A few weeks after I wrote this, I accepted a new job, bought a new car and was well on my way to achieving the goals I had set out for myself.
These past 2 weeks I’ve have to learn how to be a graphic designer because the one at my company quit. I’ve been doing my job as marketing manager and the job of a graphic designer. It’s been challenging and it’s been stressful. But, I’ve learned so much about graphic design and myself. I’ve done things I never thought possible. I did those things. Me. Spectacular me.
C.A. Sullivan
The Illuminated Page 