August 15, 2005
The Encourager
Volume 1 No. 3 August 15, 2005In this issue:
What's New at Square-Peg-People.com
Square-Peg-Spotlight
Square-Peg-Stacks
Looking ahead
What's New at Square-Peg-People.com
Yes! We've got another chat-date! Come on over and meet some new Square-Peg friends on Thursday, August 18 at 9PM (EDT). You can connect to the Artella Chat-room here.This time we'll get together and tell who our favorite Square-Peg is: could be your favorite Aunt Alice who still inspires you, your hubby who is as Square-Peg and as wonderful as could be, or Julius Caesar -- whoever..Come to the chat and let's inspire each other with "my favorite Square-Peg" stories.
Of course, we'll also use the time to enjoy meeting other Square-Pegs - who knows, you might even meet someone who will be on your future list of favorite Square-Pegs!!
Debra Schanilec is a visionary.
She is a grounded visionary - a woman able to balance the world of imagination necessary for ideas and dreams, with the planning and practicality needed to bring the dreams to life.
Debra has a dream, expressed in the motto of her website, of assisting people to: “Reach for what resonates. Dabble until you come alive. Shine, so that others may find their way.”
She’s had other dreams too. As a young woman, after a brief stay in Europe, Debra longed to return to Italy. Four years later she was there - teaching. During the wait she took a year of Italian in college - an example of dreams and plans combined.
Debra also has a vision for the future: in an exercise she did during a dream-building retreat in 1993 she was prompted to
...visualize where my dreams might take me. I was 80, looking at - and living in- a community I had physically created - looking out at the people in it...the legacy I’d left.
(Thanks again, Artella folks, for letting us use your chat room!)
We've got more outstanding
Links!
We like sharing wonderful, Square-Peg supportive sites from the wide world of Internet.
Thanks to everyone who has been using our affiliate link to Amazon to buy their books. When you buy an affiliate product from the links on our site you're helping the Square-Peg-People site stay up without paying a cent more.
We'd love to hear from you. You can contact us
here.
All thoughts, suggestions, and - of course - praise are welcome and appreciated.
And don't forget to share your comments, thoughts and feelings about the books in Square-Peg-Stacks. Did you love the book? Hate it?
Maybe you haven't read it, but the review has you itching to race over to Amazon (or your favorite local bookstore) to pick up a copy - Let us know!
There's a comment box (Square-Peg Reactions) after each Stacks review.
Our third issue of The Encourager gathers some insights from two women who know about the journey to joy.
Both Debra Schanilec (interviewed in Square-Peg-Spotlight)and Martha Beck (whose book is reviewed in Square-Peg-Stacks) are heavily into play - making the journey fun.
They both also share practical knowledge in their writing. Also, neither of them deny or ignore the hard work involved in parts of our journey.
Both play with words. Somehow, books and writing that bubble with life-loving humor find their way to the top of my book list lately.
Square-Peg-Spotlight
I have always felt different from other people.
Debra says that, when younger
as I remember it, I looked for things to do differently. Then, after I was on that path, I became different.
grew up feeling out of place because of (my) choices.
Some of the choices Debra made were:
...I picked my class ring out at a jewelry store...didn’t get the “sanctioned” one.
...and had my senior photo taken out in the country... I was into photography and wanted something different.
and, in a non-reflective culture:
I kept journals from grade school through high school and beyond.
I grew up in a a small midwestern town, knowing there was more for me out there, just not quite sure what that was.
...resonating with things that the contemporary culture doesn’t...things the contemporary culture might not feel are safe to do.
I drank in college - to drown out the inner voice, to fit in.
...at 19 I was stuck, small-town-itis making my skin crawl. I got pregnant, had an abortion...was drastically unhappy.
Debra says that her hardest times now are
Those lapses when someone in the mainstream says something or has some reaction, when I forget who I am. When I get stuck, taken by surprise and don’t have reminders or strategies ready.
Life is supposed to be fun...heaven on earth!
When you know you are a Square-Peg, and you deal with it, embrace it - you step away from the brick wall.
Square-Pegs are, maybe, more enlightened than people who aren’t Square-Pegs. Read more...
Square-Peg-Stacks
In her book, Finding Your Own North Star, Martha Beck talks us through change.
She starts by examining types of change (and the fact that change can be chosen or can be thrust upon us). Then she guides us in exploring what we desire, and continues by empowering us with knowledge about patterns of change and the how-to’s of dealing with transformation when it’s happening.
Beck says that change can bring us joy - if we’re headed in the right direction - and this book is all about helping us find the right direction.
Delightfully, Martha Beck does not try to have us all travel the same path through transition. In the Introduction, she says:
In the September issue of The Encourager we'll have an interview with Rachel Kitterman. Rachel is the author of the incredible: Daydreams & Dopplegangers e-course, subtitled - "finding your creative voice".
“There are as many paths as there are people, and the only one I can chart is my own. I have no idea, for example, where your true path may lie. But you do....I believe that a knowledge of the perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in it’s unalterable spot.”
This book is a fantastic tool for getting to know your SELF.
Martha Beck says that the self has 2 parts: the “social self” and the “essential self”. Basically, the difference between the 2 selves is the “essential self” holds awareness of what WE want, while the “social self” has the knowledge of what others want us to want - the way we fit in.
Both are vital, but Beck says that the “essential self” gets lost in our society - as the “social self” is given more emphasis.
In Finding Your Own North Star, Martha Beck gives us lots of help re-connecting with our essential self. The book has many exercises in self-awareness.
But, even if you are the kind of Square-Peg who doesn’t DO exercises, you’ll still get a shift in perspective just from reading the exercises and the information Beck gives about them.
This book is a companion through the whole journey of change with us. In it, Martha Beck offers processes for naming our desires - using a review of physical and emotional responses and signals to report on what feels good--and what doesn’t, working through blocks, helpful advice for DOING (she stresses that dreaming alone will not make your dreams a reality), and even what to expect when you reach your goals.
Read more
Looking Ahead
You can see what she's up to at:
Rachel Kitterman.com
Look for the Rachel Kitterman interview, and more, in the September 15th issue of The Encourager!