Tag Archives: Handmade

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Saith Me: Permission to Laugh

Regardless of whatever caused the need to heal, learning that it is okay to laugh even as the healing continues is an important lesson. Laughing can be a way to cope and a way to reconnect with joy. As long as there is empathy, and there is no malice, laughter can be just the medicine our bodies and minds need.

In a world where we are becoming more conscientious of how our actions affect those around us, we need to pause and consider how laughter can be a harm rather than a help. Empathy helps us recognize that even with the absence of malice, laughter can hurt rather than heal.

Empathy is vital for healing laughter even when the only one in the room is ourselves.

I spend a good deal of time laughing through my struggles, especially in my little videos/vlogs. I have had time to face and process my body’s rebellion over the last few decades. I have cried my tears, gnashed my teeth, and shouted my anger. I allow myself to acknowledge frustration rather than bottle it up like I did for so long. My family can attest to the fact that I suffer in relative silence when I am in physical pain, but I am a mess when I have a head cold – a completely sad mess. I can laugh at how ridiculous I behave when the sniffles prove to be from a virus rather than seasonal allergies. I can laugh at myself, and I can even encourage my family to chuckle with me because I have learned that I don’t always need to be strong, resilient, or stoic in the face of illness or infirmity.

Empathy is the ability to share the feelings of another.

Life is teaching me that in order to have empathy for others, we must have empathy for ourselves. We cannot have empathy for another if we do not allow ourselves to feel empathetic to our own struggles, pains, and frustrations. If we are always trying to feel perfect, look perfect, or be perfect, we will struggle to have empathy. Our laughter, even when lacking malice will not heal, but will have real potential for harm.

Self- Empathy

When I record and publish a vlog, I challenge myself to focus more on self-empathy and focus less focus on the blunders. It is my hope that as I joyfully laugh though my struggles, others can learn to give themselves permission to laugh as well.

I laugh, and I struggle, and I laugh some more in my latest video.

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The Magic is in Me

One of the things I love about hand crafts is that the process of doing the craft reminds us that we are the element of change – we are the magic that transforms one object into something greater than its original state.

On New Year’s Eve we find ourselves hoping there will be some magical force that will change the days ahead into something better than the days of the past. In recent years, it seems we cannot even make it through a full week into the new year without having this hope diminished.

When we realize the magic is inside our own selves, then we begin to understand that the hope for a better new year is a hope that can be achieved.


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Giving Handmade Gifts: Holding onto the Joy

Sharing our joy with others helps us find our own inner peace, but we can only find this peace when our hearts and minds remain focused on the sharing and not on the receiving. The moment we fixate on how our handmade gift is received, we have shifted our focus from our act of giving and are now concerned only with the gift we expect in return – the recipient’s gratitude.

Giving a handmade gift to someone we know personally, as opposed to an anonymous donation gift, often leads to concern over how the gift will be received. This concern has the potential of undermining the joy the process of making has given us. Expectation of gratitude is a dangerous path to enter when we are on our handmaking journey. It is fraught with pitfalls which can cause us and the recipient of our handmade item emotional harm.

When we treat all gifts as we treat the anonymous donation gift – in essence, when we simply hope that the item will find itself being loved, even if it must pass through many hands before it finds its home, then we can hold on to the joy that is the byproduct of our making and our giving.

The guiding principle I live by when I give a handmade gift is this:

If I make the gift with love and the intent to give it unreservedly, then the joy that I gain in the making and giving is the only reward I will expect.

Living by this principle is not always easy, and even the best efforts can still allow in feelings of disappointment, but focusing on the joy of making will usually fend off such disruptive feelings.

Our desire to share our creativity, our time, and our talents with others is a worthy desire. When we make a gift for someone, and we make it with love, the joy we get from the making is the greatest reward. It is the process of doing, of making, of giving, of serving – it is this process that blesses our lives with joy and helps us find the inner peace we need.  

My daughter thinks I may be a bit more eloquent in the last section of today’s video.

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Vlogmas 2021 – Because Why Not?

For many, YouTube Vlogmas has become a way to “break out” of the restrictions of a quarantine and travel without leaving the comfort of one’s own home. I particularly love to follow vloggers on their trips to see holiday lights and visits to Christmas markets.

For many, these vlogs help replace the sense of belonging and community that they feel is lost because of changes in society (changes that may have even happened before a pandemic). For some, simply sharing in the joy of others, even virtually, removes the cloud of loneliness that often accompanies infirmity and illness.

Whether its watching them decorate their homes, knit sweaters and scarves for gifts, or prepare their favorite holiday food, I feel a connection with these vloggers, and not because I now vlog. For me, the connection with these vloggers comes because I feel they share both my love of the holiday season and my love of sharing joy with others. The vlog, much like the physical items we give, becomes a gift from us to whomever is in need of the gift.

So this year, I have decided to make my own vlogmas contributions. I doubt it will be an annual tradition for me, but this year I hope to share holiday joy and inspiration through sharing some of my handmade treasures (many made by my own hands, and some made by the hands of loved ones).

While my first vlogmas video is on the longer side, the subsequent ones should be a shorter and contained to a specific theme.