A weekly selection of what I was reading, drawing, writing, and doing.

It was the summer solstice last week and we’re in that period when it never gets completly dark at night in Scotland. It’s weird. This is what it looked like at midnight last week:

Last week I continued my reading and summarizing of Radical Acceptance with the post Ask yourself “how can I be more kind”?

If we ask ourselves when meeting anyone—friend or stranger—“How can I be more kind?” inevitably we will recognize that every being needs to be listened to, loved and understood. While we might become aware of this first with those in our immediate circle, it is possible to pay attention and care for all living beings. The more fully we offer our attention, the more deeply we realize that what matters most in life is being kind.

It’s hard to be kind to everyone (like those people we are working with on our house renovation), but it has really made a difference to at least think about it.

Related to stuff that makes a difference for my mental state, I learned about some tricks to do with your eyes and your breathing to lower your stress levels.

I shared a post about how you should embrace imbalance in your work-life balance. Realizing we are never in balance can free you up to focus on doing what matters most.

I re-discovered my love of helping new people at work and equated it to meeting an alien. It makes you notice things about your world that you didn’t notice before and you learn things that you couldn’t have imagined prior. It’s magic.

I shared my favorite albums of June. The fact that the top pick is a lush classical/choral music album is as surprising to me as it might be to read.

A few things other things I liked reading/watching last week:

• How to create a productive working environment when on a budget – I really liked the part about varying your digital environment for different tasks and am thinking about how I can try to practice that next month
• Pheobe – a post in drawings, another from the newsletter that is the inspiration for my recent drawing posts
• Look to the octopus to understand how aliens might think – octopus are so cool! My daughter loved this and wanted to watch more

Finally, I have been really into a cover of Dancing in the dark this month and went down a little rabbit hole on the song (and other covers).

Last but not least, check out what I’m up to now.