"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - The Summer Day, Mary Oliver

Hey guys,
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This is Delia from 28 October writing to you. I’m going to try something new this week. Every time I come across something cool that I think you guys would find interesting I’m going to put it here, and then on Thursday you get a collection of cool ideas from the week.

Sound good?

Great let’s do it.
​
Hey guys,

This is Delia from 3 November scrambling to find where I took all these notes during the week (it wasn't "here" unfortunately).

Okay - first place: the Notes app in my phone (once a colleague at work took my phone and in a teasing, bordering on bullying way (it was all fun and games don't worry) said "Whatsapp, photos and notes... the three most dangerous apps. Which one shall I open?" Notes. Definitely most dangerous for me.

Jay Shetty on interconnectedness

Ahhh yes this is cool. His little daily wisdom thing on Calm where this came from has now disappeared from the app so I'll explain from memory. The idea is that if you care about someone, e.g. your children, and you want them to be happy, well their happiness depends on the people around them, e.g. their teachers at school. If their teachers are having a sh*t time, it's probably going to end up negatively impacting your children. Therefore if you care about your children's happiness, it follows that you also care about their teachers'. Their teachers' happiness and well-being is affected by people in their lives, so your "circle of care" extends to those people as well. So on and so forth, until you realise it's in your best interests to want the best for all other humans. This can probably be extended to animals and the planet as well? I guess this is where someone makes a Kumbaya joke. Okay let's move on.

Let go poem from Oli

Ahh Oli is a lovely chap who teaches yin yoga in Chelsea. Once after one of his classes I ran into Rishi Sunak (did I tell you guys that already?). As in literally nearly ran into him. He smiled. In a seemingly genuine way. I hadn't realised he was shorter than me until then. Good times.
So Oli is on the Growing Up podcast this week! He was diagnosed with Stage IV germ cell cancer at age 24 and we talk about that amongst other things. Poem at the end of this newsletter!
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​This week I'm reading: Nonviolent communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Why do I keep writing Ahhh with a different number of h's? The next note on my phone is a passage from the book I'm reading this week. Hence I get to use that title that you're used to seeing. Okay this book. Wow. Game changer. When two different people who have intimate knowledge of the problems you're dealing with recommend a book, it's probably going to be the book for you (I've definitely said that before about when your therapist recommends a book. Lol. But true. Same idea.)

If you are someone whose life would be much easier if, when you try to express what you want / need, the other side listened (rather than being defensive / ignoring your request) then this book is for you!!! So probably everyone? Unless you already learnt the art of communication somewhere else. If so, who taught you? This applies to something as small as getting your son to put his dirty socks in the wash to Israel / Palestine peace talks. True. Both examples from the book. And I'm not even halfway through yet!

Anyway, for now, just very keen to share this passage:

On happiness:

"Did you know that the way you think about yourself is more connected to your happiness than the circumstances of your life?" that's according to Tamara Levitt from the Calm meditation app. (Two Calm references this week, apologies. I feel like I'm going to get in trouble like the time @chaotic_zingerbox (from Ep. 10) accused me of only ever using the Economist as a source when we did the CAMcelled podcast.)

Yes to the page Lex Fridman is on:

And that's it from the notes app!

Then there's the quote I shared at the top. May as well do a quick google to find out whether Mary Oliver was a big old racist like Rudyard Kipling. According the poetry foundation she 'won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and a Lannan Literary Award for lifetime achievement' and was 'notoriously reticent about her private life'. So jury's still out.
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​This week on the Growing Up podcast:

P.S. If you want to follow / subscribe & review Growing Up with Delia Burgess wherever you get your podcasts (just search it in whatever podcast app you use), that helps other people find the podcast via the algorithm. I would really love for as many people who are struggling as possible to discover Ep. 12 in particular to find it as I think it could really help them 🙏

Oh yeah and here's the Let Go poem.

Actually it's a slightly different (more prayer vibes) version of the poem Oli read at the end of the ~ Sunday night candlelit slow flow / yin yoga class ~ last week (bit of plagiarism going on? Or maybe someone adapted it with permission to make it gender neutral... (the one Oli read was without pronouns). Or maybe this poem was stolen from the other one?!?!?. Will we ever solve this mystery?)

Anyway. The line She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter is really good IMO. Hope you enjoy.

She let go.

Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely,
without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a
book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.
She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her day-timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.
She didn’t analyse whether she should let go.
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line.
She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

— Reverend Safire Rose​

Thanks for being here! See you next week xx Delia

P.S. My friend just messaged me asking "how's the subscriber growth going on the newsletter?". Eeeeeeep. Why do I shy away from this stuff. Actually. Half of you understand why. The other half fully won't understand. And that explains the gender pay gap. Just kidding. But seriously. Here's the plan. By the time I write to you next week I am going to have built a website so the newsletter and podcast is all in one place. Then I'll put the website address (deliaburgess.blog, I've already bought the domain don't worry) on a business card and go down to the pub and ...hand it to any man who approaches me? Hmmm doesn't seem very efficient. Let me start with the website and we'll go from there. In the meantime if you want to forward this onto anyone who might enjoy it and help me grow the subscriber count that way, please do! Maybe that person will then be able to recommend a book to me with a title like "how to get over yourself and learn the art of self-promotion because time is ticking and one day you'll be dead so WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT DELIA" and then I can write about it here.

P.P.S. Are you that person and you want to sign up to this newsletter? Amazing subscribe here.

P.P.S. Previous editions here.