NOTES: Full Cup: Chapter 6-Embracing Difficulty

Book-Full Cup Thirsty Spirit
Author-Karen Horneffer-Ginter
ISBN-978-1401939939
Pages: 224
Chapters: 6

PRACTICE:
1. What difficult emotions do you tend to push away? What feeling do you wish you would never have to experience again? Why?
2. How might you begin to develop a sense of hardiness in your ability to feel the sensations associated with this emotion?
3. Is there someone who could hold space for you to explore the monster-like qualities of these feared emotions?
4. Can you connect to the truth that other humans share this same pain?
5. What have been the tricksters in your life? What has caused you to be shattered? Have you found unexpected gifts in these unwanted situations?
6. Consider writing a vow to yourself. What would you want to say, at the altar, if you were to marry yourself? What commitments do you want to make?
7. What areas of vulnerability are you aware of? How do you respond to their presence?
8. What would it look like to accept and befriend yourself in moments when you feel humbled by life?
9. What tools help you to be in conversation with yourself: journaling, artistic expression, movement, communicating with others either in person or online?
10. What is the connection between kindness and difficulty in your own life?
11. What would it look like and feel like to be kind to yourself in your day-to-day life, especially when you next encounter pain or difficulty?
12. If you notice the presence of critical inner voices, see if you can identify where they come from. Notice, also, what these critical voices want for you and what they’re concerned might happen if they don’t voice their judgment.
13. Reflect on how kindness shows up in your interactions with others.
14. Can you think of a small act of kindness that made a big difference in your life? In what ways do you feel drawn to offer kindness to others?
15. Do you notice a connection between compassion and busyness in your daily life? When you initially feel too busy to be compassionate, what can you do to shift that feeling?
16. Sometimes this awareness, alone, can help us remember that kindness is always an option.

NOTES: Full Cup: Chapter 5-Remembering Lightness

Book-Full Cup Thirsty Spirit
Author-Karen Horneffer-Ginter
ISBN-978-1401939939
Pages: 224
Chapters: 6

PRACTICE:
”1. Where in your life could you use some humor and lightness: in your relationships, at work, in your ways of approaching self-care?
2. What are some ways of lightening up your life that would work for you?
3. What might be the benefits of such lightness for you—possibly feeling less stressed or finding a greater sense of acceptance or creativity or gratitude in life?
4. Are there stressful situations you can reframe, possibly imaging them to be part of the plot line in a comedy? (Of course, you don’t have to make clay figures.) Play with this mind-set during the week as life challenges you or seems utterly serious. See if this helps to shift your felt sense of busyness.
5. Consider doing the comparison exercised described. Create one side that depicts things that make you come alive and the other representing things that deplete you. Be honest with yourself about what shows up in both sections. Is there anything that surprises you?
6. How can you shift the timing of when or how you do certain activities to lessen the ways in which they exhaust you?
7. Are there ways you can enliven the potentially mundane tasks of everyday life, like waiting?
8. How might you spice up your life with some new adventuresome activities? What would be your version of getting a pet monkey?
9. Are there aspects of your life that have gotten too narrowly defined?
10. What brings you joy, fun, and amusement?
11. Are there new activities you’d like to try or activities you used to do that possibly you’d like to dust off and revisit? These may be hobbies that are purely for your entertainment or endeavors that might be both fun as well as of value to those around you.”

NOTES: Full Cup: Chapter 4-Fully Inhabiting Our Days

Book-Full Cup Thirsty Spirit
Author-Karen Horneffer-Ginter
ISBN-978-1401939939
Pages: 224
Chapters: 6

PRACTICE:

“1. How can you support yourself in bringing what you find during your time within back out into your day-to-day life? What might this expression look like?
2. Set an intention to show up fully in this day. What helps you to be in the moment? How does this type of awareness affect your experience of being busy?
3. Play with bringing your attention to your senses. Notice what objects visually catch your eye, what smells and sounds surround you in different places during the day.
4. Notice the things that are very ordinary.
5. Experiment over the next week with what methods work best for you. Does it help to keep a journal, to carry a camera, to write poems, or maybe to cover your fingers in whatever is
sitting right in front of you?  What is your life telling you about who you are? Reflect on this day
or this past week. 
6. Consider the question from the perspective of your whole life. What have you learned about yourself?  Notice if you have any fears about really listening to what your life is telling you. If so, what are you afraid you might hear?
7. Try moving into the day with a sense of curiosity, either thinking of the phrase Hmm … isn’t that interesting? or looking for moments that contain messages worth listening to.
8. Consider that what’s around you, whether in nature or otherwise, may hold some teachings that are worth paying attention to.
9. Take some time to reflect on these four questions. Reword them as needed so that they make sense within the context of your life:
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop dancing?
When did you lose your sense of enchantment with stories, and in particular, your own life story?
When did you become uncomfortable with silence?
Are there any other aspects of who you are and what your life is about that have gotten lost along the way? What might you do to reclaim these qualities? “

NOTES: Full Cup: Chapter 3-Filling Up

Book-Full Cup Thirsty Spirit
Author-Karen Horneffer-Ginter
ISBN-978-1401939939
Pages: 224
Chapters: 6

“ It’s useful to consider the image of a fuel gauge and to reflect on the place from which we operate in life. Is our tank usually more than halfway full, or do we tend to move through life at near empty? At what point do we tend to fill up, and how do we know when we get to this place? Of course, as we are humans, there is no yellow light that comes on to warn us when we only have 20 more miles in us. Instead, we have to figure out our own indications of when it’s time to fill up. “

“Todd came into counseling after his wife had moved out of the house and his already-present headaches worsened into migraines. It wasn’t until then that he saw how ignoring his
family life and his body was no longer an option. “I guess I got lost in my work, forgetting that other things in life need my attention as well. But this is how my dad was with the hours he worked—I guess I grew up thinking that this was required in order to be successful.”

“Jan came to recognize that, for her, avoiding self-care was a response to having a mother who had been extremely self-absorbed and inattentive in her parenting. “I think I just wanted to be the opposite of her. She was so much more concerned with her own activities and dating relationships
than us. God forbid that picking up her children might get in the way of getting her nails done. I think I’ve been concerned that if I take any time for myself, I might become like her.”

“Kim had made a similar decision in reaction to her husband’s behavior. “He takes so much time for his own hobbies from hunting to golfing to playing poker with the guys, it doesn’t leave any time for me. If I started to take time for myself, who would cook dinner? Who would help the kids with their homework? I’ve just surrendered to the situation because it’s not worth arguing about.”

“Both women needed to see that their choice not to take care of themselves as a reaction to someone else’s extreme behavior was really only hurting them. In Jan’s case, she began trusting
in her ability to balance self-care and caring for others as she came to see that there really wasn’t the slippery slope she had imagined. For Kim, it helped to strategize how she could talk with her husband about ways they could both carve out time to take care of themselves. In doing this, she needed to acknowledge and let go of her role as martyr. She had to question her assumptions that her husband had no interest in her well-being and that it was somehow her destiny to carry
the full load of family responsibilities. “

“Even when we follow the perfect formula for self-care—eating well, exercising, taking vitamins, spending time with friends, praying, thinking happy thoughts when possible—this doesn’t always mean we’ll perpetually reside in the upper quadrants of health.  The reality is that sometimes our best equations for health flow perfectly, and sometimes they fail miserably—it’s a reminder that none of us has complete control over our well-being. It helps to embrace a balanced view that we can do what we can, accepting that there will always be variables, known and unknown, that we can’t control or even understand. Even in its imperfection, it’s still worth doing what we can to maximize our health and vitality. “

PRACTICE:
1. Take some time to reflect on your beliefs and attitudes toward self-care.
2. Where did these beliefs come from?
3. Do these beliefs support you or hinder you?
4. Are there any that you want to revise?
5. What would it look like and feel like to deeply take care of yourself?
6. Imagine yourself living in and from this upper quadrant of health and vitality.
7. How can you find a balance between doing what you can to care for yourself and realizing we can’t always be successful at such attempts?
7. Consider the fuel gauge metaphor: At what point do you usually fill up by taking care of yourself?
8. How low can you safely let your fuel line get?
9. Has this changed over time?
10.What are the signs that you’ve reached this point?

NOTES: Full Cup: Chapter 2-Turning Within

Book-Full Cup Thirsty Spirit
Author-Karen Horneffer-Ginter
ISBN-978-1401939939
Pages: 224
Chapters: 6

PRACTICE:
”What would be an ideal way of stepping out of life for you?
How much time would you like?
Would it be structured in one block of time or across multiple days or months?
Would you go away or stay at home?
What qualities would you most like to experience from this time: peace, clarity, strength, joy, gratitude, rest, others?
What activities, or lack of activities, feel like they’d be most restorative?
Put this description in a location where you can see it, in order to let these ideas sink in. In a week or so, revisit what you’ve written down and consider what elements of your plan are possible to make happen.
Think creatively.

Choose a certain time of day.
Choose a place, preferably a quiet spot or a place that can be made quiet.
Find a way to sit in which your back can be straight and your body can feel relaxed, whether this is on a chair, a cushion, or some other type of pillow on the floor. As you sit down, notice how you’re making contact with the chair 
Begin meditating by noticing your breath, not just the idea of your breath but rather the physical sensations of your breath. 
Let the practice be light—don’t try too hard, but rather allow the process to be as relaxing as possible.
Remember to be friendly with yourself. It may help to lower your expectations about what you’re hoping to experience.”

NOTES: Full Cup: Chapter 1-Honoring Our Rhythms

Book-Full Cup Thirsty Spirit
Author-Karen Horneffer-Ginter
ISBN-978-1401939939
Pages: 224
Chapters: 6

PRACTICE:
“Begin to listen to and notice how your body and soul want you to live.
What are they craving most, and what are some small (and maybe not-so-small) ways you could honor this?
Are there places where you get stuck in the movement between engaging in the world and turning within?
How might you honor this movement between rest and activity, bringing forth new life and releasing what is stale?
What would this honoring look like in your daily, weekly, and monthly life?
Experiment in this next month by making small changes and seeing which ones have the biggest impact on your well-being.
Are there beliefs you carry about the necessity of being busy that are getting in the way of slowing down? Reflect on any messages you might have picked up about busyness being associated with success or worthiness.
What do you fear would happen if you slowed down?
Which beliefs and fears are you ready to let go of?
Reflect on your relationship to rushing. What changes do you want to make?
Are there certain tasks or times of day that might be worth moving through at an intentionally slower pace?
What would help you to shift gears even if only for an hour?
Experiment with the art of slowing down—find one activity each day that you can intentionally do at a slow pace.
Try eating a meal slowly, or next time you drive somewhere take your time as you walk from
the parking lot to the building.
Take time to notice what it’s like to move at this pace. What do you notice that would have gone unseen, untasted, or unheard on another day?”

50 Ways To Take A Break

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NOTE: There’s no mention of “take a long vacation”