Have you ever met someone (online or in person) and you instantly connected? Such is the case when I first met Kim Curd. She approached me and introduced herself. She was professional, friendly and her spirit jumped from my screen and tugged at my heart. As we started emailing with each other (and then later when I read her and her husband Dale’s book), I felt an immediate connection. It was like she and I had been friends for years. After reading and reviewing their book, Living Lightly, I knew I had to have them on N. N. Light’s Book Heaven for an interview. So sit back, relax and connect with Dale and Kim.
What is your writing process?
We write as a couple simultaneously and separately. We spend many days thinking about a topic twisting it around in our minds until we have found the doorway into ourselves through the content. We bounce our ideas off of each other perhaps not to hear if they are sound but rather to witness the sparkle in the others’ eyes or hear about the goosebumps they feel - those are our signs that out of many possibilities we’ve chosen the right door to open.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
We see ourselves still in these bodies orbiting around each other marveling at simple, daily beauty. Maybe also on a stage inviting an audience to share in a big mind hug celebrating how wonderful it is to be alive and present in a moment. Coffee is also in our future. And, we’re likely still farming.
Have you always liked to write?
As introverts, (and since we were both young), writing is our preferred manner of communication since it is relatively free of interruptions save a whistling kettle or an intrusive, demanding thought. One of us has learned to sing and create music with sentences and paragraphs while the other crafts arguments out of woodland paths dotted with treats. We each have our own style and yet both of us try to make sure we’re honest, easy to understand and speaking to the places that hope lives inside of people.
Do you have a favorite spot to write? What is it?
For us a spot is less important than a tone or mood. We are fortunate that our farm has many places where mood grows and so, with little effort but an intention, we can both land in a place that speaks to our thoughts and feelings about what we want to write. A poem can happen by our pond or in the kitchen, a story that many can relate to may be created as easily on the porch as in a sunbeam through the dining room window. Our only consistency is that all that we write is created on our iPads.
What are you working on now? What is your next project?
Our next writing project is about love, or more specifically, love, intimacy, romance and relationships, friendships and family, love for another and self love. So, love generally. We believe there is much to know and feel about love and we want to go on that journey and share what we find with our readers.
What is your biggest fear?
To rely completely on another when we are not capable ourselves, and then spiders and snakes.
Where do you want to be buried when you die?
This is an ongoing joke in our household because one of us enjoys the notion of eternal personal space, and the other insisting they be buried together, facing each, forever in conversation. We shall see...whoever gets there first, I guess will win!
Where is one place you want to visit that you haven’t been before?
Despite our minds singing us to visit tropical temperatures and the sea, our hearts are calling us to the arctic to experience the Aurora borealis, the majesty of the ice, the whales, penguins, to feel otherworldly and almost how we imagine what training to prepare for visiting outerspace will feel like.
If you were an animal, what would you be and why?
We are the white spirit bear and the white deer, because they both represent incredible beauty, strength, courage to us; one small, one large, one timid, one bold, able to co-exist eating berries in the woods.
Do you have any scars? What are they from?
Between the two of us, there are numerous large and small scars covering approximately 40% of our bodies. Scars that are like doorways into our past, memories and stories. Some are from athletic prowess and risk, some childhood accidents, and the rest are reminders of hard core trauma both of our bodies have experienced. One is a soft line along the public bone, that outlines a vulnerability, yet provides strength and support inside. The other is a surprisingly straight line that created its own self, closing a dinner plate size opening in the gut. Both speak to our vulnerable need for support, our coming apart and adding reinforcement to hold it all together. Our scars are friends and doorways into worlds we have not yet fully delved into.
Title - Living Lightly
Author - Dale Curd and Kimberly Alexander
Genre - Personal Growth / Happiness / SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational / BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Mindfulness & Meditation
Publisher - Harper Collins Canada
Book Blurb –
Living Lightly is a daily devotional that offers a year’s worth of opportunities to commune, in the deepest and most beautiful sense of that word, with your self and your life. Partners and therapists, Dale and Kim Curd step through the universal doorways of life and offer us a nudge to slow down and experiences to help return us to our selves. Their personal reflections invoke gentle introspection and come from their own healing journeys and from being active therapists. Living Lightly invites you to explore how your mind works, understand and express your feelings and be reminded that you are much, much stronger than you realize. Living Lightly is a great way to start or end the day.
Excerpt -
Gratitude. There is so much to say about this state of being and its influence over our lives. I remember being taught to say “thank you” as a social grace before I was old enough to really understand what it meant to be thankful. Now, with a few more years of living behind me, I can see that being grateful is one of the keys to living a fuller life; gratitude and kindness are the true mentors of contentment.
My own definition of gratitude is “the state of being appreciative.” With this in mind, I can provide and receive all sorts of gifts to the world around me. I can easily offer a heartfelt “thank you” to the person who pours and serves my coffee. I can hold a door for someone who is struggling. I can feel excited to be given a taste of someone’s lunch. I can feel warmed by the sun and I can appreciate the beauty of a well-crafted song.
Positive psychologist Roger Emmons has written much about gratitude. In 2003 he co-authored a study in which participants began a daily practice of being thankful. After ten weeks, the participants reported significantly higher levels of optimism, specifically in the areas of health and well-being. Being grateful lightens us, as it shifts our perspective from our stresses to what is easeful and good in our lives. Appreciating how we benefit from the generosity and kindness of others, especially when it is unexpected, has the power to dissolve our aloneness and connect us not only to a community but to a force greater than ourselves. Gratitude is the state of thinking, “Yes, I see chaos, pain and suffering, but I also see flow, beauty and peace. I can see and feel balance inside and all around me. Everyone and everything that is alive benefits from life.”
Life is our benefactor; we are its beneficiaries. There is no reciprocity with life. Our only task is to deeply appreciate and be thankful for the unexpected spark that is in us and all around us.
Buy Links –
Author Biography - About Dale and Kim
Dale is a mental health professional, the host of CBC TV’s Hello Goodbye and a co-host of Life Story Project on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The creator of an acclaimed Empathetic Listening Method, Dale leads specialized workshops for law enforcement, hospitals and corporations across North America.
Kim spent twenty years in the tech startup world, helping to launch successful online companies in US banking, healthcare, organizational collaboration and international development. She has travelled extensively and considers travel one of her greatest pleasures. In 2014 she completed her training as a therapist, merging her worlds of technology and therapy, by offering clients online video counselling. Kim is a lifelong learner, always engaged in activities and ventures that expand her self-awareness, from writing, raising animals, to listening to horses and trees.
Dale and Kim founded The Child Therapy List and The Men’s List, two global, online mental wellness professional directories, to help normalize therapy and end mental health stigma. They created LivingLightlyToday.com as an online community to acknowledge and connect with readers and inspire people to share in their passion for beauty. In 2015 Dale and Kim left city life to live on a historic farm in Muskoka.
www.livinglightlytoday.com is a growing online community of souls committed to living fully, exploring new experiences, making new discoveries in our inner and outer landscapes. Dale and Kim are so excited for your images and stories, of beauty and connection. Come join the journey—we are waiting for you!
Social Media Links –
Facebook: www.facebook.com/livinglightlytoday
Twitter: www.twitter.com/livelighttoday