Inspiration

Often in life we discover that failure leads to success.

Let’s think about it. Two parents are raising two children: Joey and Johnny.

When Joey’s learning to walk, his mom is holding his hands as walks across the room to his dad. Along the path, walking across the room, Joey is secure, he can’t fall because mom’s holding him, and he feels protected. And everything he does is perfect in the eyes of his parents, because he successfully walked across the room to daddy.

Did you ever go into some place that had an echo?

It’s so hard not be a kid again. Just to play with it: clap, or say “hello”, or whistle, or stomp your feet.

I am so pleasantly surprised to find places that call you back to being curious, in the moment, childlike, wonder. The New York Botanical Gardens has a fabulous tunnel connecting two buildings that’s just perfect for making echoes. Perhaps it just happened that way. I’m grateful.

You just want to play with the situation. All else stops.

In our home, whenever someone sits down to eat anything, someone else in the home sits down too, just to keep them company.

Not necessarily to make conversation, or eat something too, but just to be with them.

A long time ago, I worked with someone who came from Taiwan. We were talking about lunch, and he said, “People should not eat alone” – this was a deep and fervent part of his up-bringing.

John:

Hello everyone. This is John and Cindy with Heart Speak. We’re here with Chris on the Intrepid on June 24, 2024, with Dr Jordan Metzl who just finished the most phenomenal Iron Work workout. Chris, how are you doing today?

Chris:

I am doing excellent. I am very happy that John and Cindy came down here. My name is Chris Vichiola from Newtown, CT. As John said, I am on the Intrepid on June 24, 2024 with Dr. Jordan Metzl’s Iron Strength workout.

I like to doodle. With an extra fine black pen on a piece of ordinary white paper.

The black ink is so stark, yet so controlled, so elegant because the line is so finely precise.

Doodling is one of earliest ways I remember to cope with frustration, with worry, with stress. It relaxes me.

There’s something about setting pen to paper that feels like raw creativity, pure play – no agenda – no picture in mind – just giving myself over to the moment.

There’s nothing like doing nothing.

I feel liberated, carefree, as if all responsibility is paused, and I am placed in a state of open wonder, able to just be.

Some may find it totally boring, perhaps a waste of time – not me!

My imagination is piqued, and ideas appear, as if clearing away everything that was blocking them. My senses are more, well, “sensitive,” magnified. So, I see and hear beauty around me more easily.

“Tie a yellow ribbon.”

I remember there was a time in my life when I had to let something go that was just - oh, I didn’t want to let it go. It was a person, and I prayed and I asked God to help me let go, and I went to this event where there were balloons, and we were out in the meadow, and I said, “You know what, they said to place your cares and worries in your balloon and let it drift off, knowing that God hears and God will take of it.”

Several years ago, I worked in a computer lab at the university I attended as a graduate student. Since I was the one who usually had to open the lab, I often got to campus very early, and was one of the first people in the parking lot.

Getting up early and commuting on the Merit Parkway was not fun. Sometimes there would be traffic jams. Other times, there was so much ice, I could barely get to work safely.

As much as I hated the commute, sometimes there were nice parts about arriving early.

Coincidence, synchronicity, what really the cause of that
The power of thought
The law of attraction
My friend Bruce and Richard were over my home today as we were working
on our project
Bruce was telling the story of a big tree
He thinks you should get the proper permission to take them down
How they should not be taken down
They have their rights to be on the planet
He was making a point for the environment and nature

I started to chuckle I said

I love this memory.
Artwork by Bruce Zboray www.bruce-zboray.artistwebsites.com


The children were small, our boy 5 and our girl 8. We went to Newport, Rhode Island for a day. The highlight of the trip was the Cliff Walk.

It’s a stone pathway in back of the mansions about a mile long.